Downtown Lansing welcomed six new businesses to Washington Avenue at their grand opening ceremony at Middle Village Micro Market. Middle Village allows new businesses to test their products and ideas while becoming active in the Lansing community and growing their customer base. The program was created by Downtown Lansing Inc. in October 2021 as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic and vacancy rates in downtown Lansing.
“We give them business programming, we give them a small, less risky place to open their storefront, and by the time they graduate after a year, they’ll open a storefront downtown,” Director of Downtown Community Development for Downtown Lansing Julie Reinhardt said.
The Gold Mine is an artist co-op where customers can buy and discover art from local artists in the area. The shop is an extension of the Artist’s Umbrella, an artist collaborative founded in 2019 which aims to uplift local artists from the Lansing community. “We try to offer a larger, more profitable platform for local artists to pursue their crafts,” Executive Director Brandon Navin said. “We have painters, we’ve got hula-hoopers, comedians, poets, musicians, storytellers, fire spinners.”
