'It didn't fly in Peoria': Owner prepares to close her unique downtown business

PEORIA – Selfie Space, a do-it-yourself photo studio in downtown Peoria, is closing after a year and a half in business.

Selfie Space owner Renee Waller announced the impending closure Dec. 30 on Facebook. It's the second brick and mortar selfie studio in Peoria to close in recent months — It's a Vibe Selfie Studio closed its location in Northwoods Mall last summer with a plan to host mobile selfie events.

“It didn’t fly in Peoria,” said Waller. "It’s not that the concept hasn’t been done elsewhere, because it’s in a lot of cities across the U.S. and other countries, so it does work elsewhere.”

Selfie Space opened on Northeast Madison Avenue across from the Madison Theater in August 2022. Waller, a Pekin resident, got the idea for the business when she visited a selfie studio in St. Louis in 2021.

With a desire to start a business and leave her corporate job, Waller found a 3,000-square-foot space and went to work renovating it, creating little rooms with creative backdrops for photo shoots.

More: Preparing to close her small business, owner has harsh words for the city of Peoria

The extensive — and expensive — renovation was a key factor in the business failure, Waller said. Her landlord, Commerce Bank, loaned her the money to renovate a space that hadn’t been used commercially for at least 10 years.

“It needed considerable work – there wasn’t a working bathroom, it wasn’t handicapped accessible,” said Waller. "Commerce had been using it. Their maintenance crews had been using it to dump equipment and supplies.”

The space was like many potential commercial spaces in downtown Peoria, an area the city would like to see redeveloped. Many buildings need extensive work, which is prohibitive for small business owners to undertake.

“I was a tenant, I didn’t own the property – the TIF that the city offers, they don’t go to the tenant, they go to the property owner,” said Waller.

The city did provide Waller with a grant she tried to use to install an awning on the front of the building, an effort to make the business more attractive to customers. But the contractor was slow, and the project never got done.

“It’s still not here – it's still not installed, and it’s too late now. I'm probably gonna have to give the city’s grant back,” Waller said.

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Initial research determined that the business would need about 20 customers a day, or 200 a month, to stay solvent. Over the course of almost a year and a half, only about 1,000 people visited the space, many of them from out-of-town, Waller said.

“I don’t think enough people in Peoria knew about it regardless of all the marketing I did. It just didn’t draw the numbers that I needed," said Waller. "I was a draw from people visiting Peoria. A lot of people who came to Peoria for events, like when there was the synchronized ice-skating group, a team of 20 girls from Wisconsin came in. They were staying in the area and looking for something to do."

Waller got creative to attract more people to the space. She tried hosting speed dating — it failed when no women showed up. She also opened the party room to groups in need of meeting space.

“I tried so many things to get people interested in using my space for more than just selfies," said Waller. "I had that large conference room - I actually got more out of that than the selfies, if you count revenue. But what people really loved was taking their photos and playing around with all the different artworks. That was the most fun. I had a lot of great folks in there.”

Selfie Space will be open through Jan. 12. Customers can walk in or schedule an appointment online at selfiespacepeoria.com.

More: Peoria selfie studio business goes mobile as it searches for a new, larger location

Leslie Renken can be reached at (309) 370-5087 or lrenken@pjstar.com. Follow her on Facebook.com/leslie.renken.

This article originally appeared on Journal Star: Unique business in downtown Peoria is closing. Here's why