Losing North Country businesses big (Lowes) and small (Red Fox Books)
Sometimes it’s hard to keep your chin up. Late last night, the Lowes corporation abruptly shuttered its big box store in Ticonderoga, as first reported by the Plattsburgh Press-Republican, laying off dozens of workers.
In addition to being a big employer, Lowes was a big player in the southern Champlain Valley economy, a place where contractors and DIYers could get just about anything.
On the same day, the Glens Falls Post Star is reporting that Red Fox Books, one of my top-five favorite bookstores in the North Country and western Vermont, is closing its doors — they blamed the sour economy and the rise of e-books.
“We have loved our role as booksellers in this community, and we are heartbroken to see this chapter in our lives, and in the life of Glens Falls, come to an end,” wrote the owners, in a letter quoted by the newspaper.
Businesses come and go. It’s natural and it’s normal. But in our corner of the world, at this point in a very tough economic cycle, this is painful.
Tags: economy
The wonderful owners of Red Fox deserved far better. It’s a huge loss for Glens Falls.
Also Brian M, could you list those four other bookstores? I’m going to have to start buying my books online and rather than Amazon or BN, I’d rather support someone’s community bookstore, even if that community is not mine.
Sorry to hear about Lows and Red Fox.
Book sales were good for me at Hoss’s book fair last week in Long Lake and The Adirondack Reader in Inlet on Sunday. But truth be told, my sales of ebooks on Amazon now exceed my sales of printed books.
Brian – My favorite regional bookstores:
Books and Baskets, Saranac Lake, The Flying Pig, Shelburne, the St. Lawrence University Bookstore, Canton, the Vermont Bookstore, Middlebury, and Red Fox in Glens Falls.
(My taste in bookstores is weird: Some very cool bookstores in the region fall off my list because they don’t have decent sci fi sections and that’s my particular guilty pleasure…)
Brian, NCPR
Thanks… I was just in the SLU bookstore a few weeks ago and it is definitely nice. Went there more than once.
“But in our corner of the world, at this point in a very tough economic cycle, this is painful.”
Sounds like Jimmy Carter II.
Ti was a puzzling choice for Lowes. The bridge being closed probably didn’t help. Give a cheer for the local lumber yards that survived the big box onslaught. Maybe Tractor Supply will think again as they begin their retrofit a mile away. They seem to follow in the Wal-Mart shadow.
It is worth a moment to consider what limits the smaller companies from drawing enough business to enable them to grow. Is it their “old” small footprint with little room to expant? Many smaller companies have attached themselves to franchises such as True Value, Ace and so on to gain name recognition and product diversity. Did the big box get tax breaks less available to local business?
I certainly feel for the Lowe’s employees.
The decline of rural population has been news chatter over the past two weeks. Pull the plug on IP in TI and the fort will have to import people to play the fife and drums.
If only the big-box stores could figure out how to build a medium-box store…maybe they could fit into a town instead of feeling like an occupying force.
They don’t care about fitting into a town they care about making money.
Red Fox has been a wonderful addition to the Glens Falls community. I have to point out that Glens Falls is not within the Blue Line and the APA had nothing to do with them closing. We, we citizens of our communities must support the good, local businesses we still have, or the new ones that open, or they will disappear.
Brian, Your last sentence, ” in our corner of the world…….. ” It’s not just in our corner of the world, country,state or county. The country as a whole is in tough economic times not just here. Lowes actually closed seven stores in several states.
Regarding RF’s sad closure… locals like to scapegoat “big government” and “onerous regulations” for the region’s sluggish private sector economy. And yet how many of them CHOOSE to send their own money to private sector businesses halfway across the country (online retailers) rather than a comparable one on Main Street in their own town?