Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Longtime store owners called it quits in 2016
County losses: Variety of reasons folded some of the best known retailers
From a lumber supplier on the Main Line to a clothing store in Coatesville, the end of the line came for a number of longtime retailers cherished for generations by their customers.
In Berwyn, the venerable William H. Fritz Lumber Co. announced in May it was closing its doors. In Coatesville, the longtime Coatesville Army & Navy Store said in October it was closing. In West Goshen, the Chester County Book Co., an independent favorite of readers in the region for decades, closed its final chapter in the West Goshen Shopping Center. In Exton, the Sports Authority in the Fairfield Shopping Center became a victim of changing shopping patterns. In West Chester, longtime office an school supplies store Rubenstein’s closed its retail operation to concentrate on national direct sales accounts.
Due to the longtime attachments formed with their communities, the closings are one of the top business and consumer stories of 2016 in Chester County.
Here’s a look at what led each to close or change focus.
William H. Fritz Lumber Co.
In May, the lumber store, in the Fritz family for five generations since 1863, announced it
was closing its doors.
Owner William “Bill” H. Fritz III will retire and his son, William Howard Fritz IV, 62, who goes by “Howard,” will take some time off, write a book about the business, volunteer and possibly work part time.
Other family members were not interested in taking over.
Some eight buildings stand on the nearly 2-acre property.
One shed holds an antique wrench that was used to change the wooden wheels on covered wagons.
There are also accoutrements, such as bits, remaining from the days when mules pulled wagons that made deliveries to customers.
A “triple” house from the 1880s once housed workers from both the lumberyard and railroad, said Howard Fritz.
Inside the sales office are a myriad other items needed to build and repair, and friendly sales people stand at the ready to write up orders or give advice.
“You’re not in Home Depot. You’ve got to watch your step,” said Howard Fritz, as he showed a reporter around the lumber yard recently.
”I was 10 years old when I started here in 1939,” said Bill Fritz. “I swept the yard with a broom.”
At 87, he still works four hours a day. They have seven employees now but in years past Fritz Lumber employed 19 or 20, he said.
The property is under contract to be sold, said Howard Fritz.
He was uncertain what will be built there next but he said they tried to sell the site to other lumber yards but the land is now too valuable to remain in that use.
“How many 153-yearold businesses do you see around here?” asked Dennis Dunbar of Dunbar Roofing and Siding.
“We’re going to miss them dearly.” Dunbar’s company is just around the corner so the proximity to his supplier has saved him a lot of time and, therefore, money, he said.
“We’re all mournful they’re leaving. They’re very nice people,” Dunbar said. Dunbar has been in business for 35 years, 31 of those in Berwyn.
He said he’s been a client of Fritz Lumber since he moved to town.
He noted that homeowners are going to miss the advice and the help that Fritz workers have given them with projects, like cutting lumber to the right size.
“We’re really going to miss that company,” Dunbar said.
Coatesville Army & Navy Store
Like the lumber yard, the Army & Navy store is closing due to the owner’s retirement.
The store was in the Skolnik family for 90 years. Judy Skolnik, who took over the store from her father Martin Skolnik about 20 years ago and who has worked in it for 38 years, is retiring.
The store was started by Judy Skolnik’s grandfather, Morris Skolnik, on South First Avenue around 1926. The store held a clearancesale in its last location at 200 block of East Lincoln Highway in November.
The building is for sale, Judy Skolnik said.
The decision to move on was a difficult one for Skolnik, who grew up in the city and was a member of one of the first classes to graduate from Coatesville Area Senior High School.
“I still live in the area and am involved in some of the clubs and organizations that are Coatesvilleoriented,” said Skolnik, 65. “I will stay involved in the community in some fashion.”
To step into the store is to step back into a time when Main Street stores were the primary places for consumer purchases.
Stuffed to rafters, the stock included winter coats, dress and casual shirts and pants, jeans, jackets, work boots and Converse sneakers, fatigues, hunting vests, Scout uniforms and supplies, school uniforms, Red Raider gear, duffel bags, packs, pajamas, bathrobes, sweat pants and shirts, sweaters, work coveralls, dress hats, socks and underwear, and plenty more.
The store also did its own printing and hemming.
“It’s a very unique merchandise mix,” Skolnik said. “The Red Raider gear was the most popular. We have been lucky to have held our own in a changing marketplace.”
Chester County Book Co.
Kathy Simoneaux Fortney, owner of Chester County Book Co., said she was closing the store in July because it was no longer viable to keep open the independent bookstore with online and chains as competition.
It wasn’t the first time the store, which occupied space in the West Goshen Shopping Center since 1987, had closed.
It closed in January 2013 after Fortney decided the larger store Chester County Book Co. had there was unsustainable.
She reopened in a smaller location later that year next to the former site, which became the home of a LA Fitness center.
The responses to the bookstore’s closing announcement this year were swift and heartfelt.
“So sad,” wrote Robb Codigan on Facebook. “One of the best bookstores in the country ...”
“Sad to see this, as I loved this store and they have been supportive of my titles,” wrote author Kathryn Craft.
Among Fortney’s memories of the bookstore over the years: “When Jimmy Carter came, we had thousands of people here,” she said. “He sold 2,500 books. There were people lined up past Kmart and doubled up.”
Other visitors of note: Bob Hope, saxophonist Clarence “‘The Big Man’ Clemons, Glenn Beck, Grateful Dead drummer Bill Kreutzmann, Paula Deen, Dr. Phil and the crew of ‘Deadliest Catch.’”
Among the authors: Craig Johnson, Mary Higgins Clark, Lisa Scottoline, Erik Larson and many more.
Sports Authority
Sports Authority, which filed for bankruptcy protection early in the year, announced in June it was shuttering all 460 of its stores after its owners accumulated $1.1 billion in debt and were unable to make on-time payments. As of March, it had about 14,500 employees.
One of those locations was in the Fairfield Shopping Center in West Whiteland.
At about 40,000 square feet, the Sports Authority was the second-biggest tenant in Fairfield Place after a Giant supermarket.
Fairfield Place leasing agent Kevin Lahn of R.J. Waters & Associates said after it signed Sports Authority to a five-year extension in 2015, “we thought everything was cool.”
“This location was strong,” Lahn said while acknowledging that competition from other chains like Dick’s and Modell’s, as well as online shopping, do provide challenges for sporting goods stores.
“The problem was the debt that the last company that bought them took out ...”
The Sports Authority closings came on the heels of another athletic goods retailer, Sport Chalet, taking similar action. That chain stopped online transactions and began closing sales at its nearly 50 stores in April.
Sports Authority, which was owned by the Los Angeles-based private equity firm Leonard Green & Partners, has said that it was hampered by its debt, and acknowledged it was late in picking up on shifting consumer trends.
Rubinstein’s Office Supply & Furniture
After a century of providing everything from pens and pencils to copy paper and fax machines to borough shoppers, Rubinstein’s Office Supply & Furniture is getting out of the retail office supplies business.
Marc Rubinstein, president of the company founded in 1915, announced in October the family business sold its building at 250 E. Market St. to developer Eli Kahn.
The company, however, is not going out of business. Instead, it is moving into offices at the American Helicopter Museum in West Goshen and will expand its national office supply offerings to business clients through a network of warehouses.
It will no longer have a store but it will continue its next-day delivery for customers signed up for that service.
Rubinstein said the operation has around 30 employees and most will continue with the business.
Rubinstein’s closed its store in Kennett Square in 2015 after 35 years in business there.
“This was part of our strategic plan to focus entirely on our commercial office supply business, as we expand across the country,” Marc Rubinstein said.