Thrift store to ditch downtown for more visible, accessible location
Bibles for Missions Thrift Store is set to move to the Frederick Mall
KITCHENER — Ken Cullen’s dayto-day life as a downtown thrift store manager is a nightmare.
He often picks up used needles from outside Bibles for Missions Thrift Store in the mornings. He has to shoo away drug users from the back alley. Sometimes naked people casually walk into the store. Shoplifting has become a never-ending problem.
“It’s gotten out of control. In the last two months it has gotten worse,” Cullen said. “We have been able to help redeem some of these kids, but as a store manager I have to wear a different hat.” “It’s time to move.” Bibles for Missions will close it’s off-the-beaten-track spot at Scott and Duke streets before Christmas. It plans to move to the empty storefront that once housed Steve’s TV and Audio at the Frederick Mall in Kitchener.
Cullen said he anticipates the new store will be open for business in early January. Even though the shoplifting and loitering are a nuisance for the shop, they are not the only reasons the thrift store wants to leave it’s downtown location.
“There is no parking here, parking is a nightmare. We have no visibility from the main street,” Cullen said. The new location at Frederick Mall will solve all of the thrift store’s problems, he added.
Cullen hopes the new location will attract new clients, give it the visibility it needs with easy highway access, and ample parking even though it is technically smaller than the store’s current space.
“We have a lot of wasted space here with the aisles and stairways.”
Cullen said he understands that the thrift store’s downtown location means it is a draw for shoppers from marginalized communities. He doesn’t want the move to be a barrier for them. He said there are a number of buses that travel to the Frederick Mall area so it will be easy to get to for some regular patrons. The new store will also be on one level, not three, so it will be more accessible as well, he added.
Bibles for Missions moved to the downtown location in 2012 from Highland Road in Kitchener. At the time Cullen said the Scott Street location was seen as promising, with light rail transit on the horizon and a downtown that was in the midst of revitalization. He said he doesn’t think it really turned out to be what they hoped.
“I think once LRT (light rail transit) is up and running there is a great potential (for this location), just not for our kind of business.”
Mission Thrift Store operates 50 thrift stores across the country and support the Bibles for Missions Foundation of Canada. Steve’s TV and Audio closed last year.