Project Pop-Up Returns for the Holidays
Written By Patrick DeVivo
Photographs By Nancy Clover
Lesley Keegan of Paper and Clay in the pop-up box last month
Project Pop-Up has returned to downtown Melrose for another holiday season. The familiar Blue Box appeared in its usual location, next to the YMCA on Main Street, last month. Project Pop-Up is a program offered by Up Next, an organization that promotes and facilitates local entrepreneurship.
The Pop-Up idea is simple: Up Next collaborates with cities and towns to identify empty brick-and-mortar storefronts in their business districts and offer them temporarily to entrepreneurs who normally work out of their homes or in non-retail space.
An entrepreneur usually occupies the storefront and conducts their business for a period of several months. Pop-Up Melrose offers a variation of this idea during the holiday season. The Blue Box provides all the amenities of a brick-and-mortar storefront, while a group of entrepreneurs is chosen to occupy the Box one week at a time, extending through the holiday season. The group represents a mix of products and services and returning and new entrepreneurs.
In a Pop-Up project the city or town benefits from the increased business activity, while the entrepreneur gets to experience the advantages and challenges of maintaining a brick-and-mortar business and can better decide if it is worth leasing such a space as a long-term business investment.
Some entrepreneurs participate in selected Pop-Up projects intermittently in the normal course of operating their business. In doing so, they can periodically assess the market for their product or service through direct in-person feedback.
Earlier this season, Daphne Rae Creative; Cotton and Blue and Paper and Clay; Grace + Bo; Food Rev Kitchen; and Into the Wild Photography (Cari Roche) and Deb's Sewing Table all took turns occupying the Pop-Up box.
Next week, you can stop in to visit Beaute Noir and Tribomo between November 27th and 30th, and Jill Paz Illustration between December 4th and 7th. Check each entrepreneur’s social media site for the most up-to-date hours and special events.
In recent years, Pop-Up Melrose has become an annual event that helps keep holiday shoppers choosing to stay in downtown Melrose and helps maintain the vitality of the city’s Main Street during the busiest time of the year.
You can find more information about Pop-up projects and other entrepreneurial services provided by Up Front at https://www.poppingupnext.com/
