Jun 14, 2009

Friends open new arts and crafts consignment store on peninsulaBy Bob PetrieSheboyganPress.com

Connie Poppy and Carol Vitella have so much faith in the future of the South Pier District, they named their new consignment store after it.

Poppy and Vitella opened South Pier Outpost at 534 South Pier Drive, among the few new businesses to set down roots recently in the 42-acre peninsula that the City of Sheboygan invested many millions of dollars in streets, sidewalks and utilities to attract retail shops, restaurants and the Blue Harbor Resort and Conference Center. And they hope to be staying there for a long time.

“I looked at the area and to me, I felt it should be something like Sheboygan’s Door County,” said Vitella, 64, who also owns the Curves fitness center next door.

South Pier Outpost opened May 1, and features handmade art, craft items, housewares and numerous other collectibles and goods made by more than 60 area artisans, who sell their products on consignment. The store filled a vacancy left when the Uniquely Yours store closed.

“This is our fifth week, things have been doing well,” said Poppy, 62, of Sheboygan, a retired Howards Grove schoolteacher. “We’re getting a lot of people. There’s a lot of word-of-mouth to begin with.”

And people are finding items such as jewelry, greeting cards, walking sticks, cutting boards and even a giant glass and metal decorative dragonfly, which hangs from the shop’s ceiling. The two women said that with the closure in recent years of the old Homespun Post on North Eighth Street, they thought local artists would be looking for a place to sell their goods.

In addition, Poppy and Vitella included their goal of giving a place for artists and craftspeople a market part of their business mission statement.

“They like to do it and there’s no place for them to sell it or put it,” Poppy said. “And we thought that a consignment shop would be a good thing to help people out in the community.”

Steve Sokolowski, the city’s planning and zoning manager, said he was glad to see a new store step in to fill a vacancy in the South Pier District.

“There’s no question we want to have new stuff but at the same time we want to try to fill at least the (vacancies) that are down there too,” Sokolowski said. “That obviously is of real importance to us.”

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