Four women-led businesses will get their shot at running brick-and-mortar storefronts in downtown Minneapolis this summer.

On Thursday, the Minneapolis Downtown Council unveiled the four members of its Chameleon Retail Cohort program, which will help the entrepreneurs find permanent homes for their businesses downtown. It’s part of a revamp of the council’s Chameleon Shoppes program, which is aimed at filling open retail spaces downtown with businesses owned by women or people of color.

The Chameleon program has been around since 2019, but the council is taking a slightly different approach this time around: The organization this year partnered with the Northside Economic Opportunity Network (NEON) to launch an intensive eight-week training course for cohort members.

“We recognized that the downtown environment is a lot different than it was when we first started,” says Lisa Middag, the downtown council’s senior director of economic development. “We wanted to make sure that we’re setting our vendors up for success.”

The NEON course covered everything from business development to finance and compliance, Middag notes. A total 13 entrepreneurs were accepted into the program, but just four will be moving on to the next phase – Middag explained that some participants decided they were not quite ready to open a storefront.

The four entrepreneurs participating this summer are:

• Keiona Cook, owner of Lovely’s Sewing & Arts Collective, a center that will offer sewing classes and sell clothing and accessories.
• Ana Castillo Jiménez, owner of Ana’s Apothecary, a plant-based skincare shop
• Jeena Gurung Vomhof, owner of Namaste Brows and Boutique, which will offer both traditional eyebrow threading and goods from Nepal
• Daovone Garbart, owner of Moon & Stars Children’s Boutique, a store selling children’s clothing from national and local brands

The council will help each cohort member with location scouting and lease negotiations. Each participant also will get one-on-one mentoring from local small business consultancy You’re Carrying Something Great LLC, led by entrepreneur Octavia Treadway.

Treadway says she’ll essentially function as a fractional chief operating officer over the next four months, helping each participant dig into data to drive revenue.

Where might these four entrepreneurs land downtown? It’s not been determined quite yet, but council officials say the storefronts will be in “high-visibility downtown locations.” There’s no firm opening date yet, either, but the council expects the entrepreneurs to open their storefronts at some point over the summer.

“We help negotiate the terms with the buildings, and [cohort members] do pay a discounted rate,” council spokeswoman Kittie Fahey said in an email. “When they hopefully spin off after the program ends, we help them find a place, but then they are on their own.”

To be sure, the retail landscape in downtown Minneapolis has become considerably more challenging since Covid-19 cleared out the usual stream of office workers. But Middag is confident that these four entrepreneurs have what it takes to succeed. As part of their course with NEON, each had to create concrete business plans, she notes.

“They understand who their customer base is and how they’ll reach their customer base downtown,” says Middag, who describes the cohort participants as “dynamic and inspiring” entrepreneurs. “They presented a viable two-year business plan with financials to go with it.”

Since it started in 2019, the Chameleon Shoppes program has helped launch about 10 new brick-and-mortar shops downtown, according to the downtown council. Of course, not all of them are still operating in the central business district today. Sistah Co-Op, a boutique featuring goods from BIPOC entrepreneurs, closed its storefront in the IDS Center skyway earlier this year after opening in 2021, for example.

Downtown council leaders maintain that success might look different for each participant.

As another example, vegan and gluten-free coffee shop Coconut Whisk Cafe opened a storefront on Nicollet Mall through Chameleon Shoppes in 2021 but shuttered it in 2023. However, the company itself still remains in business and its baking mixes are now distributed by Target, Middag says. “They wanted a platform for presenting their goods to Target and to others. The coffee shop allowed them to build an audience and get Target’s attention,” she says. “What they went into this program for, they got.”

And, for what it’s worth, between pop-ups, holiday markets, and other events, Middag estimates that the Chameleon program has supported over 350 vendors since its launch.