1736 Magazine - Vision for the Future

The coronavirus
pandemic was
one of the worst
things to happen
to Richard Green’s
business.
It also was one of the best things
to happen to it.
Green’s economic roller-coaster
ride could help explain why downtown
Augusta seemed to bend
but not break under the stress of
COVID-19’s deadly spread.
Margaret Woodard, the executive
director of the Augusta Downtown
Development Authority, sees a
strong business community downtown
that will “only get stronger.”
“Once people got over the initial
shock of ‘What the heck has happened
to us?’ they were able to
shift,” she said.
Green’s shift began in December
2019 while China wrestled with
COVID-19. His business, initially,
was electronic recycling.
“The pandemic started impacting
us a little bit sooner than it did
everybody else because of electronics
— it all comes from China.
There’s just no way around it,”
Green said. “All the actual electronic
waste ends up going back
there, too.”
In March, he moved his business,
Tech 4 Success, from a
15,000-square-foot warehouse on
New Savannah Road to a storefront
in the 900 block of Broad Street,
intending to reduce his climbing
electric bill.
That same month, COVID-19’s
effects started shutting down
Georgia businesses. For months
afterward, the only commerce
Green could conduct was through
his eBay store online. Behind his
closed storefront, he packaged and
shipped orders.
Bills started piling up, even after
his landlord granted rent forgiveness.
“So we had to make a choice,”
he said.
Opportunity knocked. With
many people homebound, Green
said, there was a huge increase in
the need for computers.
“That also meant there was a
huge increase in the amount of
people who needed computer
repair,” he said. “The vast majority
of the people who bought from
us online were computer repair
shops. We had a hard time keeping
in stock.”
Business got so good, Green
ran out of inventory in October
and November. Seeing the surge
in computer-repair demand, he
branched into computer repair,
too. He also performs security
camera installations and is looking
into providing wireless internet
services.
“So I’m being run ragged basically,
going back and forth place
to place, doing estimates, trying
to figure out how to set their stuff
up,” Green said.
Initial forecasts from agencies
such as Main Street America and
the U.S. Small Business Administration
predicted that 30% or
more of small businesses wouldn’t
survive the pandemic.
“And you start thinking what
your downtown would look like,”
Woodard said. “For example, from
13th Street to Seventh Street there
are 258 small businesses. So do the
math if 30% of those close down.”
But between regular checks
throughout the pandemic with
business owners and developers,
and a mid-December “windshield
tour” of local businesses, Woodard
said downtown actually saw a net
gain of businesses.
“If these trends continue, we feel
the small businesses that make up
the majority of our district pivoted
quickly and came up with creative
solutions to keep their doors open,”
she said.
The retail consulting firm
NextSite conducted a “customer
journey analysis” of downtown
Augusta throughout 2019 and 2020.
Richard Green experienced
some lean months at his
downtown computer business
during the COVID-19 pandemic,
but now customers are coming
back. [JOE HOTCHKISS/THE
AUGUSTA CHRONICLE]
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