Greenville — It’s been eight months since the KitchenAid Experience closed in downtown Greenville, which many businesses relied on to bring in people from out of town.
The store closed after being open for over two decades at the location on South Broadway Street, and now that it is closed it is having a ripple effect on many of those businesses.
>>>KitchenAid Experience store in Greenville to close permanently
News Center 7′s James Rider visited the community to see how people are dealing with the loss of a staple of the city.
The executive director of Main Street Greenville and the Darke County Visitor’s Bureau said that when the news of the closing broke it was a huge concern.
“Our antique store is one that was reliant upon that, where people would come to the KitchenAid store and then automatically go over. But also our restaurants and other businesses downtown.”
Berry said that when he spoke to other business owners, it was upwards to 40 to 50 percent of people that went to the KitchenAid Experience that also went to other stores downtown.
This isn’t the only challenge businesses are facing.
“We’ve had some of our restaurants not open at lunchtime now because they’re having a hard time finding employees, and that’s just the way it is throughout the town,” Berry said.
Even with facing these challenges and drop in foot traffic, there are some businesses that have opened recently and others that could be coming to Greenville soon.
“We do have some movement in that area, can’t say what it is yet. The person interested in putting that business in there has been working with some of our local governments,” Berry said.
Berry said he is hopeful that they will have not only a business take over the spot where Kitchen Aid was, but some of the other vacant spots as well by June or July.
Cox Media Group
