Kirk Gallery Is Latest Second Street District Closure

John Stuart Chair, now $900/Courtesy Kirk Gallery

In his personal blog, store owner Jeff Kirk wrote:

There's a simple reason I decided to shutter the place -- the economy sucks, and we don't have enough in-store sales to justify the overhead I'm paying to maintain a large storefront -- coupled with about a dozen much more complex matters, including my landlord's failure to offer me or any other 2nd St tenant any kind of realistic rent relief, as I alluded to both in a recent Statesman article as well as a guest editorial I wrote for the Austin Business Journal (unfortunately the final paragraph somehow got chopped off the online version). I'll elaborate more -- much more -- in the future on what's been going on for most of the past year, and what's going to end up happening as a result, but suffice it to say some much-needed change is already in the works.

Somewhat ironically, August turned out to be our best sales month to date, by a significant margin, and that was during what is typically one of the slowest furniture/home accessories sales months of the year, and without us running any ads or promoting any discounts the entire month. Still, it wasn't enough to justify keeping the business going -- at least in absence of the abatements AMLI should be providing, but isn't.

The online storefront says that Kirk Gallery will eventually return at a TBD date, likely elsewhere in town as it appears that the retailer's relationship with its landlords has turned sour. For now, items in the store have been discounted at 20-50% off. The online store will remain open.

(via Marques Harper)