A Warrnambool clothing store has been forced to close its doors on Saturday, blaming the CBD renewel project for driving down sales.
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In March, Country Attitude owner Peter Gandolfi had offered to let someone take over the Liebig Street business for nothing, but there had been no legitimate interest. “We were willing to sell the business for nothing, and all any new owner would need to do was buy the stock, which any business would have to,” he said.
“So we thought the most sensible approach to deal with it was to close the store.”
The Warrnambool shop, which was one of three Mr Gandolfi owned, had always performed very strongly, he said. “In recent times we’ve seen a massive decline in sales and took the view that we need to address it, and the most appropriate way to address it to ensure we had a sustainable business in the future was to close the Warrnambool store,” he said.
Mr Gandolfi said it was sad the closure after 10 years would affect one full-time worker and two casual staff.
“We would have never have thought only two years ago that we would be closing today,” he said.
Roadworks had had a major affect on sales, with a noticeable drop when the CBD renewal first started, he said
“The first stage was blocking access from the highway to our end, and then the second stage was blocking our end and it’s obvious today that there’s still very little traffic and particularly foot traffic which matters in the CBD,” he said. “We’ve seen a constant decline in sales.
“It will take more than the completion of roadworks, which is still going on, because people’s shopping habits have changed and we’ve noted the increase in patronage to the shopping centres outside of the CBD.”
Stock will be transferred to their other stores in Mount Gambier and Millicent.
He said he had reached an agreement with the landlord to terminate the lease, and had been able to pay staff their entitlements.