But doubling growth? In this economy, such an expansion would seem the stuff of legend.
Not for the Habitat for Humanity ReStore, which opened a new, larger Newington storefront on October 1.
At 20,000 square feet, the store located in the old Roller Skate Newington complex is nearly double the size of ReStore's original Dover quarters. In lieu of the sparse parking spots that peppered the store's former Sixth Street locale, customers will soon have 90 parking spaces. Where donators once had to navigate confusing one-way street, the new ReStore will offer a drive-thru drop-off option; simply pull up, and a store crew will unload that unwanted refrigerator, cabinet set, or cans of paint.
It will be a lot more convenient for everyone, says Manager Doug Willey of ReStore's new drop-off feature. It'll be like a gas station with attendants there to help you out.
But perhaps most impressive about ReStore's expansion is how the whimsical charm of the building's former tenant will be maintained embraced, even: The cement floors, ticket booth and brightly painted walls that adorned the near three-decade-old roller rink will all remain.
Rather than gut the remains and start from scratch, the ReStore crew chose instead to work around them, in the process making room on one floor what previously required two (including a basement) to house all their items.
Even the disco lights, sirens and speaker system all figure to play a role in ReStore's new phase.
We're going to have some fun with those, Willey laughs. There's a lot of nostalgia, a lot of history here a lot of first dates, a lot of marriage proposals happened here. When you walk in here you can see that, and we want to make sure we keep with that look and feel.
Of course, keeping with the former roller rink's unique dcor has a more immediate, tangible benefit: savings, both monetary as well as temporal.
If we came in and had to paint all the walls, it would've taken forever, says Willey. So instead we're just going with what was here and deciding to have fun with it.
Since officially taking over the Newington space in early August, ReStore has been steadily transferring all of the Dover store's stock everything from appliances to furniture to home improvement odds and ends down Route 16. In the process, Willey has begun to appreciate perhaps the most crucial of the new space's virtues: Its convenient, central location.
We're making sure to use all the signage we're permitted to use, he explains. That's something we didn't have in Dover: The signage and the exposure. People would have a hard time finding us at the old location, but here we're already getting people driving up and asking when we'll be open.
First, the crew wants to make sure their customers have a chance to reap the benefits. All day tomorrow (Saturday), the Dover store will be giving a 20% discount on all in-stock items.
Once the store opens, ReStore plans on offering an increased 15 percent discount for members of Green Alliance, the Portsmouth green business union of which ReStore is long-standing member.
While their final Dover hoorah will no doubt be bittersweet, it's a day Wiley says the team has seen coming for a while.
We knew six months after we opened that we'd eventually need a much bigger space, Willey recalls. The whole process of finding the proper location and securing it took a while, but we were excited to take that next step.
A program of Southeast New Hampshire Habitat for Humanity, the ReStore supplies overstocked, discontinued, new and used building materials donated by manufacturers, stores, contractors and individuals. These donated items are sold to the public or used in construction of Habitat houses.
Total proceeds from this store benefit SENH Habitat for Humanity's mission to provide safe, decent, affordable, and energy-efficient housing to hard-working, low-income families within our community.
For more information, go to www.senhhabitat.org
To learn
more about Green Alliance, visit www.greealliance.biz
Current Issue - May 2024