DEEP RIVER — “We love the city and I really feel so lucky that I could make a dwelling doing this and being a part of the material of my neighborhood, so when the chance introduced itself to buy the constructing, we had been thrilled,” mentioned Sage Novak, leaning in opposition to the wooden and glass counter in her ladies’s clothes store, Compass Rose, in downtown Deep River on Friday morning.

Novak opened a store in Chester in 2015, however when the constructing at 4 River Avenue turned out there, she and her husband, Dan Kollmer, jumped on the alternative to lease an area close by to Anchor and Compass, her males’s retailer at 163 Main Avenue, Deep River, which she started renting in 2010.

“I all the time needed to be right here. I needed the 2 shops to play off one another,” Novak mentioned.

Then in December 2019, Novak and Kollmer bought the 4 River Avenue location, a call that she described as an indication of their dedication to their hometown, in addition to surety for his or her enterprise, as a result of they don’t personal the constructing on Main Avenue.

There are benefits to proudly owning in comparison with renting, Novak mentioned.

“By way of longevity, you’re accountable for your individual lease, you’re accountable for what occurs along with your area. Any enhancements you make, you’re bettering your property versus another person’s property,” she mentioned. “If something would ever occur with the opposite constructing, then I’ll all the time have this, it’s safety for the long run.”

Removed from alone, Novak was one among a number of ladies buying industrial store areas alongside the Main Avenue in Deep River.

Procuring and connecting

In a one-story gray constructing at 161 Main Avenue, with a vibrant purple door, Linda Oakes was ordering merchandise for her card store, Celebrations. A framed collage of images of her first area, which she first opened throughout the road in 1982, pictured her three daughters, her mom and her mother-in-law, who all helped construct her enterprise.

“We had been there for the primary 5 years after which we purchased this property — this constructing and the constructing subsequent door and the storage within the again. It was 1988,” she mentioned Friday afternoon, as she moved across the small area chock filled with playing cards, items, clothes and housewares.

Oakes and her husband, Ray Oakes, bought the buildings with Michele St. Marie and Patricia Hartman, the house owners of what was then Pasta Limitless, later Feast, and now Dough on Main at 159 Main Avenue.

“It appeared advantageous for the 4 of us to do it collectively. We’ve been a partnership for 32 years … I management my hire,” she laughed.

She mentioned on the time she wasn’t focusing on shopping for the buildings as a result of she was desperate to replenish the brand new area and develop her enterprise.

“I feel my pleasure was I used to be shifting right into a clear [space], newly carpeted, newly painted, greater than what we had earlier than,” mentioned Oakes, who has lived in Deep River together with her household for 42 years.

Oakes mentioned she likes Main Avenue in Deep River as a result of it has a small-town environment the place folks can genuinely join.

“I feel being within the middle of any small city is absolutely one thing very particular. It’s being a part of the neighborhood, sharing along with your neighbors,” she mentioned. “Folks meet up with one another right here on a Saturday morning. You see folks you haven’t seen shortly and also you meet numerous new folks on a regular basis. In some ways it’s a gathering place.”

Committing to the long run

Farther down the block, salon proprietor Leah Kisselbrack checked a shopper’s spotlight foils whereas the 2 chatted.

Kisselbrack, who owns Leah’s Bella Vita had rented her area at 153 Main Avenue since 2011, earlier than buying the constructing in October 2019.

Like Novak and Oakes, Kisselbrack noticed the chance, even with two young children at residence.

“Business actual property was not on my bucket checklist to study, however right here we’re,” she mentioned. “I talked to my husband and he mentioned, ‘We’ve to do it.’”

Kisselbrack mentioned that initially she was afraid of constructing the dedication, however that proudly owning the constructing had modified her outlook.

“Earlier than, in fact, I knew I had a future right here, however now I see a complete totally different, a extra tangible ‘actual deal’ future, like the best way you consider your own home in shopping for versus renting. Once you purchase a home you consider your future in that area greater than you do whenever you’re renting,” she mentioned.

Kisselbrack is now additionally the owner of the barbershop subsequent door, which she mentioned, surprisingly, has not been a battle for both enterprise.

“They don’t wash hair, they don’t do coloring. Guys who come right here need to go to a salon, guys who need to go to a barbershop go there,” she mentioned.

Like her fellow constructing house owners, she mentioned the situation on Main Avenue has been “unbelievable.”

“Deep River has gotten way more superior through the years. I’m right here for the long run,” she mentioned.

Experiential buying

Novak mentioned that the Compass Rose constructing was a dry items retailer at one time and had served an essential function within the city — a historical past that turned essential when she and her husband determined to renovate the area in 2016, earlier than they knew they’d personal the situation.

“It was the place the place all of the folks within the space got here for cloth, underwear, gymnasium uniforms at the highschool, sneakers. We needed to convey it again to its outdated roots of a basic store-retail spot,” she mentioned, including that the show counter in her store was authentic to the dry items retailer.

Novak mentioned that Milton Realty had been the occupant for greater than 40 years and had built-out the area into places of work.

“We took down the partitions and refinished the flooring. We did what we would have liked to do to convey it up to the mark and to protect and defend,” she mentioned.

Even with the rise of web buying, the authenticity of the “basic retailer” expertise will probably maintain customers returning to small-town retailers like these in Deep River, Novak mentioned.

“The web and buying on-line are completely right here to remain, however I feel the small principal road brick and mortars [provide] that old style sense of connection and neighborhood, with the ability to strive issues on and contact and really feel, that I feel is stronger,” she mentioned.

“Folks store on-line however not for the whole lot after which they get pleasure from going out to their cities, or after they’re on trip, into the enjoyable little retailers and having that tactile expertise,” she mentioned. “We don’t want 100 % of the enterprise, it’s that we complement their buying expertise.”

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