Two new shops are expected to open on Kansas Avenue this spring – The Topeka Capital-Journal

Ashley Dassinger-Carson dreamed for years of opening a shop on Kansas Avenue. This spring, that dream will finally become a reality.

Dassinger-Carson plans to open two shops in downtown Topeka this year Ash Boutique, which she has owned since 2014, and Makers, a new business cooperative-inspired store that will feature local artisan-made goods.

Dassinger-Carson first opened Ash Boutique, a women's clothing store, in July 2014. But the store, located at 3123 S.W. Huntoon St., has outgrown its current space.

"We saw huge growth in 2017, 2018 and then 2019 so I've been feeling the growing pains for a while," she said.

Dassinger-Carson has tried meeting the needs of a growing customer base by offering new items, such as shoes and plus-size clothing. Now, she says, Ash Boutique simply doesn't have the space to store excess apparel or expand its offerings further.

"We had great success with shoes, but we didn't have any room to store the shoes," she said. "So we stopped carrying shoes, even though that was really successful."

As Dassinger-Carson started to think about the boutique's next step, she turned to downtown Topeka, where she has always wanted to be.

"When I first wanted to open a boutique and I worked over at (BNSF Railway) I would walk Kansas Avenue all the time on my breaks, and I dreamed of having a shop down here," she said. "I really wanted it."

Before opening Ash, Dassinger-Carson looked at a spot downtown, but at the time, it was too big.

"I brought my husband and was like: 'What do you think? This is going to be perfect,'" she said. "And he said, 'Ashley, this is not where you start. This is where you end up.' I kept that in the back of my mind all these years start small, grow big."

When the time came to consider upsizing, Dassinger-Carson didn't want to rush the decision.

"It was kind of presented to me before the Cyrus was even finished being built," she said. "And that was when our fifth child was born. And I said: 'I'm not going to make any moves or any of these decisions with pregnancy hormones. I'm just going to sit on it for a while.'"

Eventually, she said, "Yes."

But moving Ash wasn't the only decision Dassinger-Carson had been mulling. She also had an idea for a storefront where other artisans could display and sell their work.

"Since having my shop, I've had a lot of people come through my door who are essentially a maker, a creater," Dassinger-Carson said.

She said many of them are female entrepreneurs who make products from home as a "side hustle."

"They would want to put their products in my store," she added. "A lot of the time, they had really great products, but it maybe wasn't right for my customer or it wasn't right for the story that Ash is telling. But I wanted a way to help them."

That is how Makers came into the picture. Moving Ash Boutique downtown presented the perfect opportunity to open a second business, one where Dassinger-Carson could help other entrepreneurs thrive.

"Someone once told me that success isn't a drop of water, that it's an ocean and there's enough for everyone and I really, really believe that," she said.

Makers will operate similar to a co-op space, but artisans won't pay Dassinger-Carson to rent floor space. Instead, they will pay her a marketing and operational fee to sell their products in her store, and the artisan will earn commission.

"So it's not going to look like a flea market or an antique shop. When you walk in, you probably won't even know that there's 30 different businesses all wrapped up into one," Dassinger-Carson said.

She thinks Makers will help small-business owners selling solely online attract new customers allowing them to create an "omnichannel experience," she said, without having to invest in a brick-and-mortar store.

Makers will occupy space at 913 S. Kansas Ave., while Ash Boutique will sit a few storefronts away at 921 S. Kansas. Dassinger-Carson hopes to have both stores up and running by April 1 to coincide with the spring opening of Evergy Plaza.

Vince Frye, president of Downtown Topeka, Inc., said he is excited to see the new downtown additions.

Frye moved to Topeka in 1971, after graduating from the University of Kansas, and he said downtown Topeka used to be lined with shops.

"Everybody would come downtown because this is where everything was the restaurants, the theaters, the clothing stores, everything," Frye said. "It's really great to see people realizing the potential again of downtown and wanting to be a part of that and moving back to the corridor."

He hopes downtown continues to prosper and be a place Topekans can be proud of.

"We always wanted to make downtown a destination on nights and on weekends, and that is happening," Frye said. "That is allowing businesses like Ash Boutique to understand the potential."

Dassinger-Carson has recognized that growing potential for a while, and she hopes her move will inspire others to follow suit.

"I think downtown is going to be the place where you come, play and stay where you don't just come to eat and leave or work and leave," Dassinger-Carson said. "I hope that by having these shops, other people say, 'I can do it, too' whatever business they have, whether it's a salon or a spa or another gift shop.

"Whatever their passion and talent is, I hope they say, 'I can do that, too' and bring more businesses down to Kansas Avenue."

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Two new shops are expected to open on Kansas Avenue this spring - The Topeka Capital-Journal