Positively Fourth Street

If its evolution into an entertainment hotspot means Dinkytown will become as expensive as Uptown and St. Paul’s Grand Avenue in terms of retail and office space—well, that hasn’t happened yet. Neighborhood business leaders say that’s one of the best things about Dinkytown: It hasn’t been “discovered.”

“It’s still affordable in Dinkytown,” says Dinkytown Business Association President Skott Johnson, who has owned Autographics Printing on Fourth Street since 1989. “These buildings are older, and there’s not a lot that the landlords can do as far as putting improvements into the buildings. But they work.”

Johnson notes that despite its small size, there are anywhere from 80 to 120 businesses in Dinkytown. “They’re tucked away in corners and basements—some of them are just one or two people, a mom-and-pop business in one room,” he says.

Jerry Raskin has operated NeedleDoctor out of one of Dinkytown’s many small storefronts since 1979. According to Raskin, NeedleDoctor offers the world’s largest selection of needles, cartridges, and turntables to vinyl enthusiasts worldwide. (One of its items is a Clearaudio Goldfinger phono cartridge that sells for $10,000.) The store’s size belies its sales: NeedleDoctor does most of its sales on line.

Other firms have “graduated” from the small-scale quarters Dinkytown provides. Case in point is Chowgirls Killer Catering, which founders Amy Lynn Brown and Heidi Andermack opened on a shoestring in 2004. The company’s first digs were located in “Dinkydale,” an old building on Fourth Street that has long been a warren of small nooks and crannies where a variety of small, often offbeat businesses have germinated. Specializing in local, organic, and seasonal ingredients, Chowgirls outgrew its Dinkydale nook; in 2008, it moved to larger quarters in Northeast.

It’s not just retailers who can get their start (or stay and prosper) in Dinkytown. At the University Technology Enterprise Center, pretty much anyone with a business dream and a few dollars can rent a 500-square-foot office (or larger) in the former Marshall-University High School at 1313 Fifth Street. Called Utec for short, the place has incubated hundreds of start-ups, reflecting Dinkytown’s continuing appeal to young entrepreneurs.

“Dinkytown’s office customer base will probably always be students and nonprofits who don’t have a lot of money, and we can offer them good space and flexible terms,” says Doug Walker, Utec’s senior property manager. “We make it easy for people to expand and contract, depending on what’s going on in their business. Some tenants have been here for 20 years, some are brand new.”