In 2017, her business squeezed by rising rents in the Alberta District, cobbler Julie Derrick happened upon a unique opportunity: a live/work space in North Portland, for sale by owner. Later that year, she moved JD’s Shoe Repair into the historic storefront on Greeley Avenue.
“I imagine this building as a general store,” Derrick said in January, when Portland Repair Finder paid a visit to her shop to sit down and talk repair. “I mean, I know it was a general store. But I imagine it as a neighborhood community center, where you exchange information and ideas and learn things. Not just a place where you buy stuff, exclusively.”
As someone whose business has historically experienced frequent and ever-steeper rent increases, and whose cash flow is often in $15 increments, Derrick is very attuned to the economic realities of keeping her workers employed and making the mortgage. But as a small business owner in a changing city, pursuing a profit isn’t her sole concern. Derrick’s business decisions and ethic are equally driven by a desire to play a meaningful role in her neighborhood’s ecosystem. She loves that people can walk to her store; that, even as the surrounding area is developing and changing, she has customers who have lived nearby all their lives and come in to say hi.
“To me, what we do is extremely valuable in our communities,” Derrick said. “I’m going to live here for a long time. I’m going to run my business here for a long time. And then, hopefully, one of my guys will take it on and continue to run it. So I want this physical space to be like that again. Like it exists in my imagination.”
See more of Derrick’s shop and story, including details about her career path, her favorite part of being a cobbler, and her adorable shop dogs, in the following video.