Addison County economic report

Vermont Business Magazine, Sep 01, 1998

As for downtown Bristol, Hall said it certainly doesn't look like a run-down, vacancy-ridden Main Street. But its bottom line is "so-so," he said. There have been closings: the restaurant that followed Mary's, a regionally famous dining location, is no more, and a 5-and-10-type variety store also went out of business.

Merchants in Middlebury know that when a store selling ordinary, everyday items like the Bristol variety store can't survive in the center of town, that probably has more to do with changing patterns of retailing than a business owner's poor performance. After previously losing the Abrams clothing store and the Lazarus department store, two long-time mainstays of downtown Middlebury, the community was stunned to see Skihaus, a favorite clothing and sporting goods store, announce a closing sale early this summer and be faced with an involuntary Chapter 7 bankruptcy suit by distributors.

Skihaus had been "an institution" for 51 years, famous for its selection and service -- a place to bring out-of-town friends. (One draw in the past was the chance of finding marked-down items made by Geiger of Austria. Geiger is one of the thriving businesses in Middlebury's industrial zone. Their general manager said they "couldn't afford" to outsource to Asia because that would diminish product quality.) Said one loyal Skihaus customer, "We should have a New Orleans style funeral procession down Main Street."

A check with other downtown store owners on a no-name basis found others with similar problems -- one store about to close, another for sale -- and a great deal of sympathy for the owners of Skihaus. The consensus was that big chain discount stores -- like Ames in the plaza on Route 7 just south of the village, as well as Chittenden County's competition - were making it hard to carry the day to day items people buy. Meanwhile, catalog specialty retailers were chipping away at the other end of the market.

"You're almost forced to become a boutique," aiming at niche markets, said one clothing store owner. A gift store owner said small stores can survive better in the current climate because they can shift goods to meet fashions whereas Skihaus, with 9,000 square feet in retail and 25,000 square feet in total, simply couldn't alter its selection fast enough.

The space has since found two tenants, one a branch of a Burlington store and one a relocating local store. But the event has been a further impetus for the Middlebury Business Association, which is seeking to redevelop the historic waterfall area and has helped create a special tax district to boost infrastructure development.

Inspired partly by similar efforts in Vergennes and Rutland, Middlebury is now seeking to make the arts a greater part of the downtown's attractiveness. A building which had originated in the 19th century as a live performance space, then had been a movie theater, and most recently had been the Knights of Columbus Hall, will soon be purchased from the Knights once details are worked out for that group's continuing to use part of the space.