AUGUSTA — When Tracey Taylor opened her business enterprise in mid-April on Drinking water Avenue in Augusta, the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic was far more than a year previous.

Tracey Taylor stands behind the counter Friday at her enterprise Very best Everyday living Diet in downtown Augusta. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal

Taylor, proprietor of the Most effective Existence Nourishment smoothie and juice bar, was between the very first of far more than a dozen folks to open up, develop or relocate a company to downtown Augusta in 2021, earning it a history yr for compact enterprise development on Drinking water Street, regardless of the harsh economic conditions wrought by the pandemic.

In a yr when report figures of people determined to depart their work, the little small business increase on Drinking water Avenue could possibly explain wherever some of individuals persons went.

For Taylor, 46, several things to consider went into the final decision to go from used to self-employed. For 25 decades, she worked for a pharmacy, 1st in getting, then as director of gross sales to very long-term care facilities in Maine and New Hampshire.

When the pandemic halted visits to nursing homes, assisted living facilities and team properties, it took absent 1 of the issues she cherished most about her career — building relationships with customers and educating them. At about the exact same time, the son of shut family members buddies, who was the similar age as her individual son, died of cancer.

“If I am heading to alter my system, am I going to do it now or 10 yrs from now? What is another 10 decades likely to do but make me 10 several years older?” she said.

So she made the shift, opening her store at 271 H2o St.

All through the 12 months, other organizations, these kinds of as the Maine Arithmetic and Science Alliance, Saylorink Tattoo, The Fantastic Circle Cheesecakery, Lilac on the River and T and K Tactical, all opened in downtown Augusta, and Pouliot Genuine Estate and Water Avenue Barber Co. expanded.

“It’s been a long time since the place has witnessed this a lot progress,” reported Michael Corridor, govt director of the Augusta Downtown Alliance, an organization focused to setting up a thriving downtown.

“Businesses are waking up to a downtown that is greatly unique from the downtown of a decade back. With foods and vehicular targeted traffic up the two day and night time, and…