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Decatur small businesses slowly working to fully reopen, as city works to help with loan program

Recently, the City of Decatur, the Decatur Development Authorities (DDA), and Legacy Decatur helped establish a $500,000 small business loan program.

DECATUR, Ga. — While the doors remain locked at Sq/Ft, a boutique store in downtown Decatur, inside, it’s still very much open for business.

“We are depending on our website right now. It is doing fairly well. It is keeping us stable. We will be able to open the doors again, but it’s not a sustainable model,” Talia Wurtzel said.

Wurtzel is one of the owners of Sq/Ft.

“Our store has sort of turned into a warehouse instead of merchandise brick and mortar store. So, it has been a challenge, so we’ve had to adapt,” she explained.

Since mid-March, many of the small businesses in Decatur Square have had to close its door temporarily due to the pandemic. They have had to throw out the old way of doing business. However, slowly some are working their way back to some normalcy.

“The amount of to-go business we are doing helps. Our PPP [Paycheck Protection Program] helps.  We are going to begin outdoor dining service,” mentioned Dave Blanchard.

Blanchard owns both Brick Store Pub and Leon’s Full Service, which are about a block apart from each other.

He said they are taking every precaution with masks, gloves, and sanitizing everything.

“We are hoping within the next week or two we can move inside and spaciously move our tables apart,” explained Blanchard.

The City of Decatur is also pitching in to help small businesses get back on their feet.

Recently, the City, the Decatur Development Authorities (DDA), and Legacy Decatur helped establish a small business loan program with $500,000 available.

The no-interest loans are for any small business in Decatur employing between two and 30 full-time employees with businesses able to get up to $25,000.

“We knew the need was great and we had a great response during that application window period,” said Angela Threadgill, DDA’s executive director.

As for Sq/Ft, while they don’t have a date set for when they will reopen their store, they said they have a plan in place.

“It’s going to look like six feet part.  It’s going to look like masks required.  We are only allowing ten people in the store at a time and that includes staff,” Wurtzel said

Threadgill said the city is going through loan paperwork and hope to give out money to small businesses by early next month.

She also mentioned that with the help of Legacy Decatur, they were able to add $30,000 to that loan program.

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