Operator backs out at the eleventh hour

By Wiley Wood

It seemed like a natural. The Corner Store in Norfolk had stood empty for years. Cornwall, a few towns over, had a thriving country store with a genial and energetic owner, but after operating for two years at the intersection of Route 7 and Route 4, he couldn’t come to terms with the building’s proprietor on a new lease.

This came to the attention of Norfolk’s Economic Development Commission last spring. Very soon, under the leadership of Bill Brown, a Norfolk resident and EDC member, an all-out effort was made to bring the Berkshire Country Store and its owner, Ryan Craig, to downtown Norfolk.

The EDC, said Brown, was intent on “restoring an important amenity to the town, a place to buy staples and light food.”

“We first looked at the old Corner Store building,” said Craig. “But it’s built on cement slab, and any plumbing or electrical work would call for building the floor up or dropping a conduit down from the ceiling, and that meant extra cost.”

Attention then focused on 6 Station Place, locally known as “the hardware store.” Half of it was empty, and the other half was leased by Aija, a store that sold clothing, jewelry and gifts but has since closed.

While investors from the Norfolk community wrestled with the possibility of forming a nonprofit and buying 6 Station Place, the clock was ticking. Ryan Craig’s lease expired in December. He informed his two employees in June that the store might move to Norfolk. But progress was slow. “Every week I’d tell them that we were going to make headway. I didn’t want to string them along,” said Craig.

On his computer, Craig was drawing up a floor plan for the new store, which would occupy both sides of 6 Station Place. “We were going to remove the central wall,” said Craig. “There would be a full commercial kitchen, flame hood, deli cases, display shelves.” There would also be tables and chairs for customers.

Back in Norfolk, Bill Brown was working to get financing for Craig’s new construction. By the fall, he’d arranged a $100,000 loan. “We got very favorable terms for him, and a very liberal repayment schedule,” said Brown.

Meanwhile, the town’s development consultant, Michael Goman, was helping negotiate a lease with the owner of 6 Station Place, Gary Schroen, of Canton. A group of Norfolk investors had bid on the building, which is listed at $300,000, and been rejected. The best option for Craig seemed to be a 10-year lease. “He got a sweet deal,” says a source close to the negotiations.

But starting in October, Craig began having serious doubts. He’d estimated it would take 90 days to build out the store. With each week that passed, he was falling further behind in his plan, which was to shut down the store in Cornwall in mid-December and open again almost immediately in Norfolk.

He also had his two employees to consider. He trusted them, and they knew the business. They said they’d wait for him, even go on unemployment for two or three months while he worked on 6 Station Place, but was it fair and could they actually manage it?

And he’d need to keep himself afloat for two or three months while he was getting the store up and running. For two years he’d been pouring his resources into the Berkshire Country Store, and it was only recently that he’d been able to start taking money out of the business.

“If only it could have been a smooth transition,” said Craig. He knew well enough that no business is profitable overnight, and he foresaw that he would face different problems in Norfolk than he had in Cornwall. “It’s a little off the beaten path and that was a concern,” said Craig. “In Cornwall, there was always a tractor trailer or a dump truck parked outside with a driver wanting a roast beef sandwich. That wasn’t going to happen in Norfolk.”

Craig knows how important a store is to a small rural community. He remembers as a child riding his bike five miles to buy beef jerky at Nodine’s Smokehouse in Goshen. And he loved the idea of operating an old-fashioned general store. “It has to be a place where the community can gather,” he says, “a place where you can get a good sandwich, and where you can also buy some of the necessities. You need that mix of things.”

But Craig was concerned as the weeks passed and he still didn’t have the lease in hand. He began looking elsewhere for possibilities.

On December 11, four days before his lease in Cornwall ended, Craig was finally scheduled to sign a 10-year lease on 6 Station Place. Then the phone rang. “I got a job offer to work at a nice annual salary with a company in Waterbury,” said Craig. “That call came through an hour and a half before I was set to sign the lease.”

Brown confirms that Craig had a late change of heart: “He ultimately decided that he wanted to take a regular job.”

Brown and the EDC continue to look for candidates to operate a store in Norfolk. “I look over there and it’s a sad sight: our downtown is for sale!” says Brown. “A general store is not only desirable, it’s inconceivable that we don’t have such an amenity in town.”