You can call it a “soft opening” if you want too, but while the grand opening is not until June 3, folks were already shopping at the new Pat Catan’s Arts and Crafts Store in the mall at 4050 Rhodes Ave. in New Boston Thursday afternoon.
To say the store is large is an understatement. The stock is huge and it all comes down to something craft shoppers look for when they browse the aisles – selection.
“We have 50,000 square feet of merchandise in here,” store manager Jim Gleim said. “We have everything in stock and we’re ready to sell it. Hopefully it will make people’s lives a little bit easier instead of having to drive to Hobby Lobby or something like that. They can shop right here in town and help the community out.”
To begin to describe the merchandise is not something that could be done in a day or may even a week.
“We are a craft store that is out of the Strongsville (Ohio) area and we are excited about being here in New Boston,” store Gleim said. “We’re looking forward to years of business in this store.”
Gleim did not have a firm number of employees who will be working at the new store.
“Total number, I honestly don’t know,” Gleim said. “We’ve got so many that we’ve hired and we’re going to be doing some more hiring, so I don’t really know where we sit at right now.”
Pat Catan’s is open 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sundays. They will close at 5 p.m. on Memorial Day.
Village Councilman Mike Payton said it is a relief to see a store of that size occupying that building.
“Steve & Barry’s was in there for a while. Festival Foods was in there and then it sat empty for a long long time,” Payton said. “So it was good to see them come in. I’d have to double check my figures but I think there’s 30-some jobs that came with this. That’s another thing that we were happy about from a standpoint of our economy.”
Payton said he hopes that building being occupied will draw more people to that mall to open other businesses there.
“Having one of the biggest buildings in the mall full, with them, Tractor Supply, Ollies, it’s starting to fill up,” Payton said. “It’s starting to become more attractive for others to come in, so I feel good about that.”
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