SARANAC LAKE - Employees of the first community-owned department store in the state were working feverishly Friday afternoon to get the business ready for its long-awaited opening today.
As the Saranac Lake Community Store's sign was being hoisted into place on the facade of the former Corvo restaurant on Main Street, manager Craig Waters was helping unload a Fed Ex truck filled with boxes containing baby strollers and playpens. Inside, employees and volunteers were busy stocking merchandise and tidying up.
"It's been a little stressful but we're extremely excited, and we can't wait for tomorrow," Waters said.
The store opens at 9 a.m. today, and a ribbon cutting ceremony is scheduled for 10 a.m. When that happens, it will mark the end of one journey and the beginning of another.
Some people trace the Community Store project to a 2006 meeting at the Harrietstown Town Hall when more than 150 people showed up for a presentation on a successful community-owned department store in Powell, Wyo. That meeting came not long after Walmart withdrew plans to build a 121,000-square-foot Supercenter in the village.
Others date it to an article on Powell's store in a fall 2004 issue of Smithsonian magazine, which was well read locally because it featured the Adirondacks on the cover.
But the story really dates to 2002, when Saranac Lake's 40,000-square-foot Ames department store shut its doors. When that happened, many local residents were forced to drive to Plattsburgh, Malone of elsewhere to get basic goods - everything from underwear to bedsheets - that they couldn't find locally. Local drug and hardware stores expanded their offerings to fill some of the gap, but not all of it.
A group of local residents ultimately proposed a homegrown solution and began selling $100 shares in a proposed Saranac Lake Community Store in July 2007. It took longer than expected, but the group announced in March that it had reached its goal of selling $500,000 worth of shares. By then, the store had a location, the 5,000-square-foot former restaurant.
Waters was hired in April as the store's general manager and buyer. He has 35 years of retail experience, including stints with Abraham and Straus, May Company, Christmas Tree Shops, Staples, BJ's Wholesale Club and Bradley's Department Store.
Waters gave the Enterprise a sneak preview tour of the Community Store on Friday. What used to be the bar and lounge area of the restaurant at the front of the building is now filled with numerous racks of men's and women's clothing: sweaters, shirts, blouses, pants and jeans.
The wall between the bar and the kitchen was removed, and a children's apparel section is located where the kitchen used to be. Packages of socks and underwear, for kids and adults, hang on hooks on the walls. Another corner of the store's main showroom is dedicated to baby clothing and supplies.
Waters said 65 percent of the store's product line is apparel. Dickies, Aeropostale, Wrangler, Coldwater Creek, Wigwam, Hanes, Russell and Champion are some of the name brands the store carries. Offering products that are made in the USA is a priority, Waters said.
"We're not going to be everything to everybody," he said. "What I was looking to do is not give people a lot of higher-end items, but items that can be offered at fair prices and are reasonable values."
What had been the upper dining area of the restaurant has been opened up, though its skylight windows remain. That part of the store is home to a craft area with sewing supplies, a small selection of local books and the store's checkout area. Sheets, towels, pillows, comforters and other housewares fill another corner.
The back half of the building - the restaurant's former banquet area - is still under construction. Waters said the home goods section of the store, and possibly the men's clothing section, will likely move to that area when it's complete in about two weeks, in time for the store's formal grand opening on Nov. 19.
Waters noted that the lineup of goods the store offers was developed through feedback from shareholders and people in the community.
"We also went around to area stores here to meet people and see what's out there right now," he said. "Our objective is not to compete with the local stores as much as it is to complement what they might have. It's a matter of us listening and being attentive to people. Hopefully we've hit some home runs to start the ball rolling, but we're always open to suggestions."
One common misconception about the store is that it's only open to its shareholders, or that it's a co-op or a nonprofit organization. It's a for-profit business, open to everyone whether they're one of its roughly 600 shareholders or not.
The big question in the minds of many of the store's potential customers is whether it will offer enough of the goods they want, and at reasonable enough prices, to keep them from leaving town to shop. Waters said he doesn't expect people's habits to change overnight.
"But I think if people give us a chance, maybe we can fill those voids," he said. "Hopefully they'll walk away with the feeling that our prices are right on target for what they can spend."
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Contact Chris Knight at 518-891-2600 ext. 24 or cknight@adirondackdailyenterprise.com.
