My Tenants Have Names

By: J. David Chapman, PhD, / July 31, 2026

Over the years, I have owned and managed a number of commercial properties. At any given time, I might have fifteen or twenty tenants. Strangely enough, I can only remember one national tenant I have ever had: Pitney Bowes. They may have been the easiest tenant of my career.

The rent always arrived on time. Maintenance requests were handled professionally. There was always someone responsible for accounting, operations, facilities, and decision-making. I never worried about whether the business would survive another month.

Everyone else had a story. For most of my career, I have rented micro-retail spaces, typically between 250 and 1,000 square feet, to businesses with fewer than ten employees. They are the salons, coffee shops, boutiques, wellness providers, artists, consultants, and specialty retailers that give our downtowns their personality.

I have learned that renting to entrepreneurs is an entirely different business than renting to corporations. Corporations have systems. Entrepreneurs have dreams.

When you rent to a national company, business is business. When you rent to a local entrepreneur, life and business are often inseparable. A marriage, a new baby, an illness, burnout, or family obligations can instantly affect the business because there is no organizational chart separating the owner from the operation.

Recently, one of my tenants decided not to return to work after having a baby. She wanted to sell the business and transfer the lease to the young woman who had been helping during her maternity leave. Next door, another business had changed hands when a young owner realized that running the business was taking too great a toll on her family and chose to pass the opportunity to someone else.

Neither decision was bad. They were simply life. And that is the challenge of renting to entrepreneurs. Their personal lives often become part of my business life as well. Yet I wouldn't have it any other way.

The U.S. Small Business Administration reports that small businesses make up 99.9 percent of all American businesses, employ more than 62 million people, and provide nearly 46 percent of all private-sector jobs. They generate approximately 43.5 percent of our nation's gross domestic product.

These businesses are not a small part of our economy. They are our economy. They are also remarkably difficult to build. About one in five new businesses closes within its first year. Roughly half do not survive five years, and only about one-third are still operating after a decade.

Those numbers help explain why landlords serving Main Street often experience more tenant turnover than those leasing to national companies. But statistics don't tell the whole story.

For years, I have watched entrepreneurs take empty storefronts and turn them into places people remember. They become employers, neighbors, gathering places, and contributors to the local economy. Every successful business adds another thread to the fabric of a downtown.

These are the businesses I wrote about in subURBAN! Reimagining the Suburban Downtown. Vibrant downtowns are not created by architecture alone. They are created by people willing to risk their savings, work impossibly long hours, and chase a dream behind a small storefront.

My tenants have names. I know their stories, celebrate their successes, and occasionally share in their struggles. Despite the occasional headaches, I wouldn't trade them for anything.

Dr. J. David Chapman is Chair of Finance & Professor of Real Estate at The University of Central Oklahoma (jchapman7@uco.edu)