A cutting-edge vision

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This article was published 26/11/2023 (694 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Noah Mikula’s Vision has never been easier to see.

The prominent barber has taken the next step in his multi-pronged artistic career by opening his first upscale parlour at a prime storefront in Winnipeg’s Exchange District.

Mikula, 27, said it’s his familiarity with the neighbourhood that led him to open Vision Studios on the main floor of the Bate Building (formerly known as the Lyon Block) at 217 McDermot Ave., but perhaps it’s his business model that will allow him to thrive in an area that struggled to host viable long-term retail businesses before the pandemic and continues to starve for sustainable services.

“This place is blessed because it gives me the opportunity to showcase everything that I’m doing and show what I’m trying to talk about with my brand because that’s exactly what I was trying to do at one point when I was younger, to have a place like this,” Mikula said.

Mikula birthed the concept of his Vision brand in Grade 6 as he began exploring his artistic abilities through drawing, painting and spray painting.

Without his knowing at the time, Mikula’s brand took a step when he started cutting his own hair in Grade 9. Through a lot of trial and error, he got the hang of it and eventually gained enough credibility among his friends to let him cut their hair.

Mikula quickly found himself racing around the city after school to cater to a rapidly growing clientele. In Grade 12, he set up shop in his bedroom where he stayed until taking a chair at Prep Hair on Corydon. That’s where the young barber stayed for two years until moving to Saint where his prominence continued to grow under the tutelage of renowned hairstylist Scott (Famos) Ramos.

In 2018, Mikula ventured to his own space in a studio above his current shop at 217 McDermot Ave., where he operated by himself for five years before upscaling this summer.

“I built my brand there. I built so much there, upstairs. I started my art, I started making clothes, I started designing, I started really making a brand from the word vision,” Mikula said. “I always would be standing out here and looking around and seeing how good of an opportunity this little corner is for business. There’s so many things around here. I love the atmosphere of the Exchange: lots of art, creative people, people who are willing to invest in themselves in the creative things the Exchange has to offer.”

The 1,900-square-foot space was most recently occupied by Tiny Feast, a stationery and gift store, and Shop Take Care, which sold clothing and home goods. Bill Cheng has owned the Bate Building for nearly 30 years and can remember hosting six tenants during that time, all of whom have lasted no more than six years.

Businesses in industries like fashion have the toughest time remaining open, Cheng maintained, and it’s only worsened as online shopping has boomed.

“What I notice is some people (panic) when they need to go downtown because there’s traffic and then they don’t know where they’re going to park. If they go to buy something for say $20 but they may get a ticket for $40 or $50 so they say, ‘Oh, forget about it, I’ll just go online,’ Cheng said.

“And then the fashion (industry) is changing, more people are spending time online instead of in person, in particular during the pandemic,” he continued. “But in the Exchange District, what I noticed is if the (business) is one of a kind … you can still have a big attraction for the people coming downtown.”

That’s why Cheng is confident Mikula’s business can survive the trying life as a small business owner, because he’s brought an established clientele of more than 100 repeat customers — and hundreds of more clients who come periodically — to his new shop.

“But in Noah’s case, because he knows the area so well — he’s been (leasing) from me for close to six years — it’s kind of like he has his own clientele so no problem, the people know the area, they know they can park somewhere for half an hour and then maybe eat in the Exchange — no problem at all,” Cheng said.

There were 126 small independent (local) businesses (restaurants, shops, services and entertainment) in the Exchange in 2019, according to a report provided by the Exchange District BIZ. Currently, there are 117, not including professional or medical services or small businesses in tech or creative sectors. Since the pandemic, the area has seen a slight increase in shops (by about 10), a decrease in food and beverage (by about 10), and a bigger drop in entertainment (movie theatres, night clubs, game rooms), and health, beauty and wellness.

Mikula is the latest in a string of investments by business owners in the Exchange District over the last several months. The Village Salon Studios, a multi-faceted salon, Empty Cup, a coffee shop, Borgo Antico, an Italian Restaurant, and Ashdown Market, a new grocery store, have all laid roots in the area.

“I think we’ve seen a couple of good signs,” said Kris Mutcher, VP of retail with Colliers. “Obviously, it’s still got a long way to go. Downtown retail was struggling pre-pandemic, it’s not that it was a hot item before COVID so leasing was tough downtown— I’ve been in the industry for 20 years and it’s always been a challenging component of our market.

“But, I come to work every day downtown and there’s definitely more traffic, there’s definitely more people … and I think we’re starting to see some businesses take a chance.”

Mutcher said retail space vacancies in downtown aren’t tracked anymore due to little activity in the sector. While he acknowledged some of the recent and upcoming plans to add residential units to the city’s core, Mutcher maintained that will continue to be the primary barrier to more business owners opening downtown.

“I don’t think rent is a barrier currently, I think it’s, ‘Can we generate enough traffic to run a viable business’ versus somebody spending money to open in St. Vital or the Polo Park area or Regent and Lagimodiere,” Mutcher said. “There’s ready, willing and able landlords out there that want to do deals, it’s finding those entrepreneurs that are wanting to commit and spend their money down here to run their business.

“When you go to Toronto or you go to Vancouver and you see that they’ve got a more vibrant retail offering, I would equate that to the fact that there’s people living there,“ he said. “I think we’re hopefully getting closer to a tipping point with that with the number of residential entities that are being added (in Winnipeg).

“Retail is not a driver of people, people are a driver of retail.”

Mikula said the larger space now offers him an ideal location to display his art and his clothing designs, and a prime space to sell his custom clothing releases and a gallery for visitors to view and buy his art.

jfreysam@freepress.mb.ca