Plant shop owner moves into Joliet spot next to future green space

Michele Arana has opened her plant shop right next to what promises to be the greenest space in downtown Joliet.

Now, it’s a parking lot, which isn’t so bad either.

“We’ve had no issues with people saying it’s hard to find parking,” Arana said.

Arana in March opened her Internode Greenery & Home, which both sells plants and provides interior plans to bring greenery into homes and businesses, at 81 N. Chicago St. in a spot with big windows next to the Van Buren Plaza fountain. The plaza and fountain are slated to be replaced with a downtown city square with trees and other green space to alter the landscape of downtown Joliet by 2026.

Advocates for the city square say it will spur a new growth of downtown development.

Arana said it motivated her decision to move there from a strip mall in Crest Hill.

“We wanted to be in on the ground floor,” she said, adding that she looks forward to the development of the city square and the business it could bring. “It’s going to be amazing. I’m very excited about it.”

Arana is originally from Morris, but is now a resident of the Cathedral Area in Joliet. She already was a frequent visitor to downtown, bringing her kids to the library, and saw it as a place where she wanted to grow her business.

“We were looking for a community,” she said. “I like to support all the locally owned businesses.”

Internode Greenery & Home is the latest of what has been a growing number of entrepreneurs locating in downtown Joliet as they start or grow retail businesses.

“Another one is coming,” said Priscilla Cordero, executive director of the Joliet City Center Partnership, which promotes the downtown area and its businesses. “We’ll have one more retail business downtown.”

Prison City Vintage, a thrift shop, is in the process of getting city permits for a location across Chicago Street from Internode Greenery & Home.

The City Center Partnership provides networking opportunities for downtown businesses, many of which have representatives on the organization’s board, Cordero said.

The partnership, which is funded by a special service area tax, also provides grants for new businesses to help with renovations of their space. Such a grant was provided to Internode Greenery & Home.

Cordero said the store helps bring a new customer base downtown.

One of those customers, Lisa Bersano, said she heard of the business from a University of St. Francis student in classes at the Rialto Square Theatre building, also across Chicago Street from Internode Greenery & Home, when she attended an event there.

“She had this plant she was carrying around, and she said you have to try this plant store,” Bersano said.

Arana, who has previous experience managing a plant shop, is able to offer insight into how to care for plants and what will thrive in certain settings.

“People build a connection to plants,” she said.

She herself is deeply connected to a plant that belonged to her late grandmother.

“I still have that plant,” Arana said. “If it died, I’d be heartbroken, because it’s my grandmother’s plant.”

Arana said she has been heartened that her customer base has followed her from her previous location in Crest Hill. She also is developing new customers from the lawyers, office workers and others who are in downtown Joliet.

One of her recent customers is a Collins Street auto parts business that wanted to bring plants into its offices.

She believes the future is bright.

“People come in our front door and say, ‘Thank you for coming to downtown Joliet,’” she said.