Like the rest of the staff, Inspire Marketplace store manager Charles Avison is also a seller: He got involved while marketing Detroit City of Champions. His trilogy about Detroit sports in 1935 recalls how the Lions, Tigers, and Red Wings all brought home their first championships. | Photo by J. Adrian Wylie
A collective of artists and other Michigan-based vendors has set up shop on a shoestring budget in the Briarwood Mall storefront vacant since Williams Sonoma closed in 2021.
Inspire Marketplace “was never set up for profit,” according to owner Nikko Davidson. “The business model is set up for shared expenses. I take all the risk for it.” A hearty laugh follows, perhaps concealing some nervousness.
Inspire is the successor to a defunct concept known as Art Is In Market, where Davidson was general manager. It has been in Novi’s Twelve Oaks Mall and the Mall at Partridge Creek in Clinton Twp. since forming five years ago.
“These last three years have been hard,” Davidson admits. “I can’t believe we survived this.”
The “we” is key. About seventy-five vendors, mostly artists, display their wares on a commission basis, in addition to paying a share of the rent.
“Everything is, like, just totally organic,” says store manager Charles Avison. “Whenever the store kind of needs something, it feels like there’s always somebody that helps us to take the next one step forward.”
From handbags to apparel to jewelry repurposed from vintage silverware, almost everything is handmade. Many have Detroit or Michigan themes, but Alan Freedman casts a wider net at his booth of crystals, rocks, and gemstone jewelry from around the world. Avison says the former owner of Four Directions on S. Main “basically kind of unretired just to have his own little nook in here.”
Related: Four Directions
“The response has been overwhelming,” Davidson says: Sales here are already the highest among the three locations. “That’s why we’ve always stayed with the malls, because they provide the highest foot traffic.”
Inspire’s budget doesn’t permit a new phone line, and their “shop local” ethos makes a website a low priority. In what Avison calls the “starving artist kind of mentality, where nothing gets wasted,” he is thankful for the wooden shelving units, sales counter, and display tables that came with the space.
“Everything in here’s got soul, man. It’s got substance,” he enthuses. “And I think that this space was like something spiritual—like this place was happy to have us.”
Inspire Marketplace, Briarwood Mall (Macy’s wing). Mon.–Sat. 10 a.m.–9 p.m., Sun. 11 a.m.–6 p.m.
