Piccolina on Woodstock Boulevard is a thrift and consignment store for children. Pictured here are its owner, Brittany Brooner, with her son Hank and Piccolina assistant Adelaide Kaiser. (Photo by Elizabeth Ussher Groff)

We all know that small businesses suffered during the COVID-19 pandemic, and some of them still feel the weight of difficulties experienced, and revenues lost, during that time. Recently, rising rents have been compounding their problems.

As one example, Piccolina, a children’s consignment and thrift store at 4416 S.E. Woodstock Boulevard, has not lacked customers, but reports itself as reeling from a rent hike. The small shop has been in existence for fifteen years, and sells children’s clothing, shoes, boots, books, toys, puzzles and infant and children’s gear. It has become a popular shopping destination for parents and grandparents.

Brittany Dawson Brooner, one of a few female Native American shop owners in Portland, bought the business four years ago. When she was informed by her landlord Donald Hanna Jr. that the shop’s rent would increase by $500 a month (lease plus fees), she reflected, “I think the shop’s fate is up in the air.”

Squeezed between “Viking Soul Food” and “Grand Central Bakery”, Piccolina is well-situated, but the rent hike and additional problems she alleges over time, dealing with maintenance and communication with the landlord have been very difficult, according to Brooner.

Examples of such difficulties at Piccolina are so many that Brooner says she has had to seek legal help to sort things out. She recounts: “A $625 bill for a broken HVAC ….[the shop] was without heat for a month in February. My five-month-old wore a snowsuit inside when we worked, because it was so cold; it dipped below 50 degrees in here at one point. Eventually a local heating and cooling company let me borrow heaters, even though their repair services were not used… There have been three floods in three years in the building basement, and all the drains are cemented over.”

Piccolina is one of many properties in Woodstock owned by this company, which also  has commercial and residential properties for lease in Woodstock and throughout Portland. A recent count indicates seven of their commercial properties for lease in the metro area. The family has owned properties up and down Woodstock Boulevard for 75 years.

In a BEE email reaching out to Donald Hanna Jr., President/CEO of Hanna Network, Inc., he responded: “I appreciate being asked to explain, as often we are left out, and only one side of the story gets covered… The real culprit here is the city and the insurance companies… Ms. Dawson renewed her lease in November with a modest increase that is well below market rate for Woodstock…  As for the maintenance issues Ms. Dawson is having, we are not aware of any, and when she has asked we have always responded quickly, even though maintenance issues are the tenants’ responsibility. We try to help because it is tough right now to survive. We are all trying to survive.”

Are more small neighborhood businesses going to be challenged by rising rents? Another Hanna Network renter on Woodstock Boulevard, “Musical Monsters”, reports that it will be permanently closing soon.

Neighborhood Associations continue to encourage supporting small local businesses, and such businesses encourage landlords to support the neighborhoods in which they own property by listening and responding to tenants’ needs. Without this help small businesses will continue to have difficult and perhaps unsurmountable challenges.

Piccolina’s Brooner opines, “When local entrepreneurs are priced out, or silenced, neighborhoods lose more than just these businesses – they lose culture, character, and connection. Ethical property management should involve dialogue, fairness, and a shared investment in the health of the community.”

Meantime, THE BEE is aware of a number of major landlords in Southeast who are noted for showing empathy to their tenants in the current economy – after all, some rent money is better than an empty space and no rent at all. But rising rents are inevitable over time – as are rising prices to consumers, as well.

Along with most Neighborhood Associations in Inner Southeast Portland, THE BEE continues to support and endorse “shopping local”!