By Ed Avis
Sometimes you find yourself in the right place at just the right time. That was the case with Amy Cartwright, owner of The Costume Shop in Russells Point, Ohio, and being there resulted in a new home for her business.
Cartwright and her husband, Ward Cartwright, purchased their business about four years ago. They had been renting a space in the backside of a building, which meant visibility for their store was suboptimal.
“We have always wanted to have our own space, but we are in a destination location for summer play, around a lake in Ohio, so real estate is really hard to come by and very expensive, especially commercial real estate,” Amy explains. “So I was having coffee with the owner of this building. She was talking about costumes for an event she was doing, and she happened to get a phone call that her tenant was moving out of the location. She said that once the tenant moved, they were going sell the building.”
The building seemed perfect for their shop, so Amy and Ward negotiated the acquisition and now The Costume Shop is moving.
“So it just all worked out! It was pretty cool,” Amy says.
The building, which is about a mile away from their existing shop, is one story tall and is ADA-compliant. It has a large window facing the street, which they plan to decorate for Halloween and other holidays.
“It’s a very open floor plan and it’s two spaces, so all of our retail can be in the front space and our rentals in the back,” she says. “And we have a nice paved lot, where our old place had a gravel lot.”
Amy estimates the building is about 80 years old. “But the space was recently updated, so it’s really good to go. There’s not much we have to do.”
Halloween is the biggest season for The Costume Shop, but the summer visitors to Russell’s Point provide some consistent sales as well. The new location will have better foot traffic from those summer visitors, so Cartwright is adding more impulse items and accessories to her store to generate business from them.
The Cartwrights plan a grand re-opening at the new location on July 18 and 19.
“We’re just so excited to see what this will do for our business!”