True Blue Art Supply is closing. It is the second to the last of the independent art supply stores to close in Western North Carolina. The owner, Claire Reeder, blamed online retailers for the decline in sales.
“Brick and mortar is kind of going away,” she says, “it’s too hard to pay the overhead that retail spaces like this demand and still meet with that competitive online pricing.
One can only wonder how much streetscaping to engage pedestrian interaction with a walkable new urbanist feel, as opposed to permitting something like warehouses with parking spaces for retail activities, has to do with the problem.
