Jun 24, 2009

Businesses snatching up storefronts in downtown Glenwood SpringsBy John GardnerPostIndependent.com

Glenwood Springs, Colorado — Heather Finley has found a new home for her Glenwood Springs business, Passion for Picnics.

After spending the past two years on Market Street at the Glenwood Meadows Shopping Center, Finley recently moved to a cozy location on Grand Avenue. She was able to move her entire store in one weekend and opened for business on June 1.

“It just took us a few days,” she said. “We were going pretty quickly and didn’t want to miss out on any weekends this summer.”

Finley said that high tourism traffic was the main attraction to the downtown core. She’s created a local following at her Meadows location but wanted to expand further into the downtown tourism market.

“I felt like I needed a place where I could have both the local market and the tourists,” she said.

And there were plenty of vacant spaces to accommodate her needs.

Downtown Glenwood Springs has seen a resurgence as several of the vacant stores have recently found new occupants.

Finley actually moved into the space vacated by Annie K’s, which was a short-lived specialty gift shop. Annie K’s came in after longtime Glenwood resident and owner of the Mountain Peddler, Joan Chaffin, closed down her shop in 2008. At the time when the Mountain Peddler closed up shop there were about a dozen vacancies in downtown Glenwood Springs, leaving the doors wide open for entrepreneurs who wanted, or needed, to move to a prime location. But they weren’t filling up very quickly.

This recent spike in interest has Main Street Gallery manager Nancy Page excited about the future of the downtown.

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