Shops see highs, lows on Second Avenue’s 100 block
The glass door chimes as it swings open, causing Tibor Marki to glance up from the workbench where he repairs the soles on a pair of battered brown leather Converse sneakers.
The scent of cobbler’s glue wafts out of the cluttered shop and into the sun-dappled street. In the back of the shop, racks of clothes wait patiently for the tailor’s needle and thread.
Downtown Tailor & Shoerepair Inc. opened nine years ago. Marki started work there three years after, half a decade or so after emigrating to Canada from what is now Serbia. Although he is a machinist by trade, and continues to work on the side to make ends meet, Marki loves repairing shoes and working in downtown Saskatoon, even if it isn’t always easy.
“It’s hard when you have lots of empty space and people not walking,” he said, gesturing out the window and across the street at the vacant storefront, one of many dotting the otherwise-bustling avenue.
“I think the economics right now are down. People doesn’t have enough money to spend. Everybody keeps it and just spends what they need. I think this is a problem,” Marki added.
Running from 22nd Street to the bus mall and the old Hudson’s Bay building on 23rd Street, the 100 block of Second Avenue North is one of the city’s diverse stretches of asphalt and pavement. According to the Downtown Business Improvement District, it has the greatest concentration of retail businesses of any block in Saskatoon, even taking into account gaping empty storefronts.
The block is home to some genuine institutions. Burtons for Shoes has been open for more than 70 years, for instance. Other businesses are just finding their feet.
At the same time, the block has seen a spate of closures in recent years. While some businesses, including furniture store Area and W Bridal, have poured resources into renovations, there are still an abundance of ‘For Lease’ signs.
“I wouldn’t advise anybody to open a shop downtown right now, with the rents that people are still charging, with the economy the way it is,” Theo Kivol told the Saskatoon Starphoenix two years ago, when his comic book store closed.
Most business owners who spoke to the Saskatoon Starphoenix agreed the economy is one problem. Natural resource prices simply haven’t recovered enough to return the city to the prosperity it enjoyed a few years ago.
A few, including Marki and Vinyl Exchange owner Mike Spindloe, suggested rental rates have not fallen back to normal levels after rising sharply a decade or so ago, when the city’s real estate market exploded.
Some, however, have chosen to interpret the ‘For Lease’ signs as an opportunity rather than an obstacle.
Uno Printing Co. is one of them. A general print shop that puts a twist on tradition by selling its clients’ products in a storefront, the Regina-based company opened its first Saskatoon location in a recently vacated clothing store.
A few doors down from Marki’s shop, Uno co-owner Blair Therrien is sitting in what he jokingly refers to as the “boardroom,” a plywood skateboard halfpipe tucked away in the back of the company ’s tastefully sparse store.
“We just saw an opportunity and took it. They’re not always going to stay vacant,” Therrien said, noting that he and his business partners looked at spaces on major streets across the city before settling on Second Avenue.
“The tenants that are here have their feet firmly planted in the ground, and they are optimistic and they’re really eager to change the way things are. When your neighbours have that mindset … you can’t help but think that things are going to turn around.”
Chinese food restaurant Ming ’s Kitchen is also expected to reopen soon in a building on the block’s southeast corner that has housed a succession of restaurants during the last half-decade.
Spindloe opened the record store 25 years ago this month — long enough for vinyl record sales to collapse and then recover. He took a more fatalistic view of why some businesses thrive and others fail.
“Ultimately, you find your clientele and they find you — and if that happens you survive and if it doesn’t, you don’t.”
Downtown BID executive director Brent Penner said businesses fail and close for a range of reasons. Sometimes it’s as simple as an entrepreneur not wanting to commit to another five-year lease, he said.
Nikki van Duyvendyk knows the challenges of running a business downtown as well as anyone. She spent the last four years in charge of White Dahlia, a fashion boutique that recently merged back with her family business, Dutch Growers.
Like many who have invested in Second Avenue — she owns the building that housed the boutique — van Duyvendyk acknowledged the challenges posed by limited parking and panhandlers desperate for spare change or a cigarette.
But she suspects the real reason behind the block’s high turnover is a lack of planning, and people who dive in with unrealistic expectations or insufficient capital to prop up their idea until it becomes selfsufficient.
“When somebody fails, I hurt for them. We all do. You want everybody, the local businesses, to be successful in Saskatoon. Generally, I think we do have a bit of a stigma for downtown, but you have that in every city,” she said.
According to Spindloe, however, the problems business owners complain about now are hardly new.
“The street, it honestly hasn’t changed that much,” he said, reclining in a battered office chair in the store’s backroom, where the walls are plastered with fading music posters and lined with racks holding thousands of CDS.
“The kinds of problems that there are, or people perceive that there are, are still much the same. People don’t like to pay for parking, people don’t like the panhandlers. Really, that’s about it. It’s a pleasant street.”
While some business owners have expressed interest in measures to make the 100 block more accessible, Penner said some steps — including three-hour parking limits — have already been taken and more are in the works.
Pointing out that about 85 per cent of development in Saskatoon is greenfield — previously undeveloped sites — rather than infill, Penner said the city ought to consider ways to make new developments inside Circle Drive easier and, ideally, cheaper.
“If we can say it’s just as easy to invest at Second and 22nd as it is in a greenfield development, that’s a good thing — trying to level that playing field as much as we can,” he said, adding that reducing the tax burden on infill could also help.
Back up the street at Downtown Tailor & Shoerepair, a steady stream of people wander by the windows as Marki returns to work. While his path hasn’t been easy, and challenges persist, he still loves it.
“I love to work with the people. I like my job … Some like the mall. I like the street.”
People don’t like to pay for parking, people don’t like the panhandlers. Really, that’s about it. It’s a pleasant street.