A new furniture store that has opened in the fourth phase of the Downtown Akron Partnership's pop-up retail program is attracting a national clientele to the community.

Sweet Modern, which sells vintage, midcentury modern furniture and decor, started as a web business for Ronald Higgins and his husband, Adam Krutko, before growing into a brick-and-mortar spot at 2 North Summit St.

Christine Vadala, director of business development for Downtown Akron Partnership (DAP), said this is the first furniture store in the pop-up retail program.

The timing is good, too, as more residential development projects get off the ground in downtown Akron as the city works toward the goal of increasing the Rubber City's population.

Higgins said he and Krutko love to collect midcentury modern furniture. The fact that it was overflowing at their Highland Square home helped spur them to start selling it online five months before opening the store in December. Sweet Modern resides in space adjacent to Higgins' other business, Cogneato, a website development and internet marketing services agency that operated out of their home until June 2017.

As they saw some success with their online furniture sales, they knew the time was right to open a retail spot.

The duo buys furniture at a range of venues, such as estate sales, auctions and private sellers, and fixes it up for resale, with the help of an upholsterer who set up his business in their store.

While they happily sell to local customers, especially the growing population of downtown dwellers, many of their sales are to people on the West or East coasts, who shop online and in person, because Sweet Modern is able to offer pieces at lower prices, even factoring in delivery costs.

Higgins and Krutko combine each delivery with the acquisition of more items, carefully plotting out their journeys so that they leave Akron with a full truck of sold items and come home days later with fresh merchandise.

Items sell across a wide price range, from $100-plus for a chair to several thousand dollars for a rebuilt sofa.

Higgins said that Sweet Modern is a natural pairing with his web marketing business, as he is able to use his skills to get his products in front of prospective buyers all over the country.

He called the pop-up program's assistance a "life saver," as it helped them expand into a vacant suite across the hall from the showroom and Cogneato's offices.

"It gave us the space to do woodworking and have on-site upholstery services," he said. "I am not sure we would have been able to do this otherwise."

Publicity services offered by DAP were a huge help as well, he added.

"Had I opened this anywhere else, it would have been a much more uphill battle," he said. "The people at the Downtown Akron Partnership swooped in and picked us up and carried us across the finish line."

Sweet Modern is one of four businesses to open in Phase Four of the pop-up program, which began in early 2018 and is set to wrap up in February. The other businesses that have launched in this phase are:

• Eartha Vision, a photography studio, darkroom and gallery with space for yoga, photography classes and events at 20 North High St.

• Rising Star Center for the Arts, which offers lessons in music, art and theater at 11 East Exchange St.

• Seberg, a vintage haute couture shop set to open in January at 39 East Market St.

The pop-up program began in 2015 and provides decreasing rent subsidies in each of the first six months a business is open. The earlier phases focused on first-floor storefront locations, but because of changing downtown dynamics, notably extensive road construction projects, this phase has allowed businesses to be located in any downtown space, Vadala said.

"With the construction, storefront activity had slowed down a little bit, so we asked our funders to open the parameters (of Phase Four)," she said.

Vadala said that the cumulative subsidy spent for the first four phases has been just over $85,000.

"We have generated just shy of $900,000 in lease revenue in the markets since 2015 and have created about 74 jobs," she said.

The retention rate for the new businesses is currently 83%, she added.

Vadala said DAP anticipates there will be a fifth phase but is not certain what that will look like yet. She said she does not think the ongoing road work will stop it, though.

"As long as this program is successful, and doing what it's supposed to do, which is incentivize new businesses to come downtown, we will move forward," she said.