A pioneering Pacific Avenue retailer is closing its doors after more than a decade.
Upscale gallery and boutique BKB & Company, a name formed by the last-name initials of the three original owners, will go out of business Dec. 15.
“I’m 62 years old,” owner Corky Brown said Friday. “I have four grandchildren, and retail is not conducive to family life around Christmas.”
The worst recession since the 1930s is not conducive to retailing, either, particularly when your patrons are discriminating buyers from points north.
“Tacoma’s never really been our customer,” Brown said, explaining that most people who shop at BKB come to visit Tacoma’s museum district from Seattle and Bellevue. BKB sells original jewelry, sculpture, clothing and more by 65 different artists.
“If you’re an artist, you cannot not do what you do,” she said. “So our service is critical so they can do their work. We provide a brick and mortar place, and a customer base, for people who work with their hands.”
Tacoma art advocates said BKB’s closing is a shame. “It’s not just about who walks in my door,” said Phyllis Harrison, co-owner of LeRoy Jewelers and The Art Stop. “The more galleries we have, the more customers we have.”
City of Tacoma arts administrator Amy McBride said galleries are key to a thriving art community.
“Artists make their living off of having a few venues to sell their work in, so losing one has to have an impact,” she said.
Brown, her daughter Victoria Brown and family friend Diane Katz formed the store in 1998 in a little shop on North 21st and Oakes streets. Then they opened a second location on Pacific Avenue in 2003, closed the original location about a year later and expanded to 1734 Pacific Ave. in 2007.
“When we opened, Tacoma was ripe,” Corky Brown said. “But with the tearing up of Pacific Avenue, twice; the construction on the Joy Building next door; and the recession, we just couldn’t stay.”
Frustration over the University of Washington Tacoma’s renovation of the Joy Building, and its one-time plan to remove some retail spaces along Pacific Avenue, caused a rift between some tenants like Brown who lease from the school. Brown said Friday that despite its promises, the school doesn’t do a good job marketing its space. Her lack of confidence led her to hire an outside broker to sublease her store through next August.
UWT’s real estate manager, Deidre Miller, said she understands the frustration and blames the economy. “It’s a pretty tough market,” she said. “I’ve taken criticism from them over the years that they’ve given me names (of potential tenants) and nothing happened. All I can do is contact them. I can’t make them come here. I follow up on any leads.”
New tenants are headed for the empty spaces next to BKB. Miller said she signed a lease Thursday for a small food retailer that will sell bubble tea, a drink that originated in Taiwan. She’s negotiating with a frozen yogurt shop, and a pop-up holiday store has opened in one of the larger spaces.
Mary-Catherine Kenny of Seattle stopped into BKB on Friday to get in touch with an artist who made a set of purple glass earrings. One had broken, and she was curiuos about repair. She was disappointed to hear the store is closing.
“I came in to see if I could get the artist to fix this, and I’ll walk out of here with a bag of stuff,” she said. “They always have unique, quality things.”
Kathleen Cooper: 253-597-8546
kathleen.cooper@thenewstribune.com
blog.thenewstribune.com/business
Twitter: @KCooperTNT
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