New/improved stores in downtown Manchester!

Saturday was a beautiful, sunny afternoon in Manchester. So, I took a walk downtown to "stroll". With the winter weather/temperatures over the past few months, I hadn't taken time to just see what had changed -- I'd just been going where I needed to go as quickly as possible.

On a recent trip, I had noticed a new used records/CDs store that popped up in one of the buildings just south of the old Post Office Fruit Luncheonette (424 Chestnut?). So, I popped in for a few minutes. I'm a big Fleetwood Mac fan, so I was happy to see some of their albums, plus solo albums from people in the group. I didn't have time for a lot of chit-chat but they guy running the place said he used to have a store over by Central High school.

There was 1 other customer in the store at the time and he even bought something! Amazing!

Close to this store is a sports cards/collectibles shop that just seems to be getting around to open. Or maybe they're open but didn't look open. There were people working inside, but it didn't seem like they were quite ready for customers.

On this same trip, I stopped into "Corey's" which is a (variety?) store just to the north of Copy Express on Elm Street. In the time that I've lived in Manchester, it was first vacant, then became the "Step It Up" campaign office, then vacant again, and now Corey's for maybe the past year.

Based on observation and comparing my previous visit to yesterday's experience, and talking with Corey herself, the place is changing. My first impression was that it was a store for cheap tools and home decor, so it seemed like an odd type of thing to have downtown. But it's evolved based on customer requests to include art supplies for the New Hampshire Institute of Art students and very recently, they added a section with groceries. Now you can get canned veggies, soups, microwave popcorn, oatmeal, etc.

Corey told me that about 80% of the items are in the store based on cusomer requests/suggestions. She really seems to be into the "community" aspects of downtown, and she even mentioned this in our conversation.

If I had the time, I'd love to do a more in-depth post and some more investigation into all this. But right now, my priorities are on other things (as listed at UnitedManchester.org). So hopefully someone can take things from here. Maybe our friend at FortressManchester.com?