The Thrift Shop is moving to what used to be a secondhand shop.
While a formal lease hasn’t been signed yet, volunteers with the Thrift Shop of Aspen have a verbal agreement to rent the former Gracy’s consignment store space next to the Crystal Palace at a below-market rate.
The Thrift Shop plans to open in its new temporary location by April 28.
The Thrift Shop building, and the Aspen Volunteer Fire Department building, are both scheduled to be torn down on May 5.
“The fact that it is in the downtown core, just around the corner from where we have been, is just a godsend,” said Thrift Shop volunteer Nancy Gensch of Snowmass Village.
Gensch is chair of the Thrift Shop’s new building committee, which has raised $1.55 million toward its $2.1 million goal in order to build a new 4,500-square-foot building.
The new building will replace the current 2,000-square-foot Thrift Shop building on Hopkins Avenue that was built in 1981. The Thrift Shop needs to be out of its building by about April 21.
The new owner of the 2,400-square-foot former Gracy’s location, which has also been home to a dinner theater and the Barney Wyckoff Gallery, is Linden Nelson.
“He is our hero,” Gensch said of Nelson. “We are getting a substantial break on the rent.”
Even at a discount, the rent that the Thrift Shop pays while it waits 12 to 14 months for its new three-story building to be constructed will cut into the amount the Thrift Shop can donate to local nonprofits.
Typically, the Thrift Shop donates $250,000, or 92 percent of its revenues, to local nonprofits.
The Thrift Shop depends on its 80 volunteers to go through donations of clothing, furniture, books, toys, shoes, housewares and lots of other stuff and then place it for sale to the general public.
And Gensch expects that donations will be allowed to be dropped off in the alley behind the Gracy’s location, just like they are behind the current Thrift Shop location.
“There is room in the back, but there is nothing covered, so we’re trying to figure that out,” Gensch said.
This won’t be the first time the Thrift Shop, which started in 1947, will have moved. It was once located in the City Hall building and it once did a stint in the basement of the Wheeler Opera House.
To help lighten the moving load, the Thrift Shop plans a “super bag sale” sometime in mid-April, with bags of stuff costing $5 and under.
The Thrift Shop is planning a big block party from 3 to 9 p.m. on April 26 in conjunction with the fire department to celebrate the redevelopment of both buildings.
The event is called “The Wrecking Ball” and the dress code will likely be thrift-shop chic.
(By the way, donations to the Thrift Shop’s building fund can be sent to P.O. Box 126, Aspen, CO, 81612 and checks can be made out to the Thrift Shop of Aspen.)
bgs@aspendailynews.com