news story / By Heidi Walters

Old Town Hunkers Down

Despite high-profile closures, merchants say they will weather the storm

(April 30, 2009)  The empty windows of key, long-time Old Town inhabitants — Natural Selection, Restoration Hardware, Geppetto’s Toys — might make you think a viral merchant-vanishing bomb has gone off, and who knows whom the infection will take down next.

But not everything is as it seems, according to Charlotte McDonald, executive director of Eureka Main Street, an association of Old Town and Downtown businesses in the area between the waterfront and 8th Street and A Street and I Street.

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“It’s not all just doom and gloom,” McDonald said last week.

In the past year and a half, 15 businesses have closed (or are about to). But 27 businesses have opened. She said the recession may have played a role in some of the anchor stores’ closures, but it wasn’t the only reason. Restoration Hardware — the flagship store of a nationwide chain — was sold recently to a private corporation, which decided to close it and another store (and, to open one in Canada).

“And with Natural Selection, [owner] Roy Kohl has wanted out of the retail business for some time now, especially with [his] opening of Oberon Grill, now — that’s very labor- and time-intensive,” said McDonald. (In a Times-Standard story, Kohl blamed the closure on the recession, and also on stores like Target and Bed, Bath and Beyond which opened earlier this decade; a number of merchants pooh-pooh that latter notion, however.) And Geppetto’s closed for a number of reasons, including personal. (Natural Selection and Geppetto’s are keeping their Arcata stores open.)

“If we were in a strong, thriving economic climate and this was happening, it would be a lot bigger concern,” said McDonald. “I mean, it’s a concern, don’t get me wrong. We’ve lost a lot of industry up here. Look at Humboldt Creamery, filing Chapter 11. Look at what’s happened to the timber industry — we don’t have a pulp mill now. All those things have direct effects on what’s going on with our businesses.”

Late last Friday afternoon, Michelle Abram, manager of Amerind Bay Clothing Company, on 2nd Street, was getting ready for the after-school influx of girls.

“Prom season’s getting us by,” Abram said. “But it’s been quiet. Still, we have a lot of people who are trying to shop local, and, with the prom coming, we’re getting a lot of moms.”

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