“I have been so blessed to have customers become friends and friends become family,” Rooney said in the post. “I will miss the daily interaction with all of you.”
She told the Journal-News that the business at 160 High St. “takes up a lot more time than I have right now. It’s just time to move on to something else.”
Mike Dingeldein, executive director for CORE Hamilton, the store’s landlord, said the non-profit development organization is “looking for the next potential lease holder, but we don’t have anything signed up yet.”
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Dingeldein attributed the closing to changes in customer dynamics.
“All these storefronts are fragile and need things to happen, but there have just been some changes in the downtown traffic,” Dingeldein told the Journal-News. “Butler Tech School of the Arts went to a closed campus this year and that was a pretty big lunchtime traffic thing … and that’s no longer.”
He said Rooney “made a really hard try of it” but a few months of poor results can be difficult for a business owner to overcome.
“She’s tried really hard and done a good job but not quite enough to make it viable,” he said. “That’s not necessarily her fault, but the traffic hasn’t been quite enough to sustain the store.”
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Alexander’s is offering specials before it closes, including 50 cents off bottles and cans of soda, juice, coffees and energy drinks, plus all groceries at 50 percent off.
The storefront in the formerly empty Elder-Beerman building opened in September 2015 as Jackson’s Market. The business changed names and ownership in April 2016.
Rooney, who was part of the original management team at Jackson’s when it opened, updated the business to include more locally produced items and new programming aimed at attracting more customers during the weeknights and weekends.
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