"Please feel free to stop in and have a conversation with my dad, he still enjoys talking to people. He might even join you for a bike ride if you invite him, those are the interactions he treasures the most."
That's Jaime Williams, talking about her father Jim Foster, whose shop at 320 Michigan Avenue has been fixing bikes and hosting conversations since 1989. Foster's Bike Shop closed this month after Williams took her father to the doctor twice in two weeks, got a dementia diagnosis, and was told by his physicians that he shouldn't be making financial or legal decisions anymore. Thirty-seven years is a long run for any small business. Foster had been resisting his daughter's suggestion to step back for about three years, first because arthritis was making the fine mechanical work harder, then because he worried Alpena would lose a reliable place to get a bike fixed. For repairs and tune-ups going forward, Harborside Cycle & Sport confirmed it can handle the work locals used to bring to Foster's.
If you've lived here a while, that closure is the kind of thing you feel before you can name it. A shop that outlasted four decades of downtown turnover is gone, and it happened fast, for reasons that have nothing to do with the market and everything to do with one family's month. But here's what's easy to miss if you only clock the loss: the same stretch of weeks that took Foster's away also opened, or is actively filling, at least four other doors around town. That's not a coincidence of timing. It's a look at two different ways businesses start and end in Alpena right now, running side by side.
Two Ways to Open a Door in Alpena This Summer
Foster's took nearly four decades to become a fixture and it closed only because of a health emergency, not because business slowed. That's the old model: you sign a lease, you build a reputation over years, and the shop becomes part of how people navigate the town in their heads. But the two most visible additions to Alpena's commercial map this year follow a different logic entirely, one where the barrier to trying something has dropped to almost nothing.
| US-23 Retail Corridor | Water Street Commons | |
|---|---|---|
| Example | Family Farm and Home, in the former Big Lots box | Rotating tiny shops along the Thunder Bay River |
| Commitment | Full-size retail lease | $25 per day, 1 to 5 days a month |
| Who's involved | A regional chain with locations across five states | Local entrepreneurs testing an idea |
| What it says about the town | Enough visibility along US-23 to attract a Midwest chain looking to backfill a vacant box | Enough downtown foot traffic that the DDA can run a low-risk incubator instead of chasing long-term tenants |
Family Farm and Home, a Tractor Supply-style retailer based in West Michigan with locations in Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, opened in the former Big Lots location on US-23 south back in March. It's the kind of tenant a strip center gets when a chain looks at traffic counts and decides the visibility is worth it. That's one Alpena, the one built on regional retail filling regional-sized boxes.
The other Alpena is the one along the Thunder Bay River, where the city's Downtown Development Authority is actively recruiting new or existing small businesses to fill a rotating tiny shop at Water Street Commons, a cluster of five small storefronts, a beverage shed, and a food truck area with public seating on the river. Applications are open now, with daily rentals scheduled through the end of October and holiday-season scheduling starting this August. The math is almost startling by comparison to a standard commercial lease: $25 a day, a minimum of one day and a maximum of five per calendar month, and a one-time application that covers the whole calendar year. You don't need a landlord's confidence in your five-year plan. You need thirty-six hours' notice and twenty-five dollars.
That gap, between what it takes to open a Family Farm and Home and what it takes to try a pop-up shop by the river, is the actual story here. Alpena isn't just replacing what it loses. It's running two parallel systems for how a business gets a foothold, and the low-commitment one downtown didn't exist in anything like this form a few years ago.
What's Actually New If You Haven't Been Downtown Lately
If your last close look at downtown was earlier this year, here's what's changed:
- Family Farm and Home opened in the former Big Lots box on US-23 south, bringing chicks, feed, and farm supplies to a spot that had sat empty for a stretch.
- Water Street Commons is recruiting vendors for its rotating tiny shops through the DDA, with the application window open now and holiday scheduling beginning this month.
- Marithyme, the Mediterranean café tucked into the rear entrance of the Center Building, marked its first year in business this June. Owner Rony Khoury, who grew up in Beirut and previously ran a seasonal spot called Thyme at the Point at Tawas Point State Park, built Marithyme around grab-and-go Mediterranean food alongside a small boutique of spices, crafts, and goods from Middle Eastern makers.
- The Alpena Sticker Quest, a citywide game from the Alpena Area Chamber of Commerce, has residents and visitors following clues to local businesses to collect stickers on a game board, with completed boards due by September 1 for a shot at prize packages worth $500.
None of these are throwing a parade for Foster's. But together they say something about what's replacing the old model of a business becoming a fixture over decades: a mix of chain retail filling highway boxes, a public program lowering the cost of trying something downtown, an immigrant-owned café that's already made it past its first year, and a Chamber of Commerce game that's literally built around the premise of walking people past storefronts they might not have noticed. The Sticker Quest, in particular, is a strange kind of proof. The Chamber built an entire scavenger hunt on the assumption that residents don't already know every business on their own streets, and the fact that it exists at all suggests that assumption is correct.
What This Means If You're Just Walking Around
None of this changes what made Alpena work for people who already live here. The Thunder Bay River is still the spine of downtown. The Center Building is still filling in its upper floors with new tenants. The DDA is still the office you'd call if you had an idea for a storefront and $25 to spare. But the pace of turnover on the ground floor has shifted. A business with thirty-seven years behind it can close in a matter of weeks for reasons that have nothing to do with foot traffic, while a business with three weeks of planning can open in a shed by the river for the cost of a tank of gas. Both of those are true in Alpena right now, at the same time, on streets a few blocks apart.
If you're the kind of person who notices when a shop's lights are off that used to be on, or when a new sign goes up somewhere you didn't expect, that's the texture of this particular summer here. Stop by and see Jim Foster if you get the chance. Then walk down to the river and see what's filling the tiny shops this week, because by the time you read this, it may already be someone new.
If you're thinking about property in Alpena or Montmorency County, whether it's a place to call home or land to build on, Hillman Real Estate knows these towns from the ground up. Get in touch and let's talk about what you're looking for.
