The big, glass front doors of Dayle’s Grand Market opened on Wednesday morning with all the nervous anticipation of an invitation from a secret crush to a high school dance.
Both pose a question to which the answer is uncertain.
For Dayle’s, the unspoken question on Wednesday morning was: Will they come back?
“As a witness and resident of this town for many, many years I will say that since the commencement of the pandemic the amount of delivery trucks you see around town has been incredible,” said Hal Davidson.
Like the other nine small business people whose stores occupy the market, the owner of HD Coins and Collectibles was watching the door for customers and friends.
Dayle’s closed its doors in late March.
Like most retail outlets throughout the sandstone and brick downtowns of small-town Nova Scotia, it wasn’t required by law to close. But the pandemic meant no-one was going to come if they stayed open.
How many will survive?
As many of the restrictions lift on Friday, the question faced by Dayle’s during its soft opening is the same one facing already beleaguered downtown cores around this province.
“I don’t know how many of them will survive,” said Ron Furlong, executive director of the Amherst and Area Chamber of Commerce, of downtown retailers.
“We’ve already been pretty winnowed out.”
The first blow came decades ago when shopping malls began luring customers out to the town’s edges with their national chain stores and comfortable indoor walking.
Then big-box shopping centres at Bayer’s Lake, Halifax, and in Moncton lured more customers away from both downtowns and local malls.
Both were a revolution in shopping patterns brought on by increased car access and better highways.
The latest blow has been the mobility of the product itself – online shopping is bringing our stuff direct from overseas factories to the consumer’s front door.
It’s not us that are mobile now, it’s what we buy.
The pandemic has seen a drastic increase in online shopping and what remains to be seen is what this will mean for retail and the downtowns that are cherished, even if not always supported, by those who live around them.
The downtown advantage
Furlong sees some light, even if he’s not sure how much.
“Malls, big-box stores and online is all about convenience, but that’s not the only thing important to customers,” said Furlong.
“When you’re selling a commodity it doesn’t matter where it comes from. But if you’re selling a service and you know your customers and what they want, then they will come for that.”
Beyond being a grand market, Dayle’s was a grand experiment in retail and downtown revitalization that had, at least until the pandemic, been a success.
Formerly Dayles Department Store, the large stone building with its stamped metal ceilings held aloft by columns and a regal staircase to match was a throwback to Amherst’s industrial glory during the turn of the last century.
Its closure in 2016 was widely feared to be a final nail in the coffin of Amherst’s downtown.
That was until a group of a local entrepreneurs, led by Karen MacKinnon, teamed up with the building’s owner, to open it as a market.
It has become a destination for tourists and shoppers from around northern Nova Scotia and southern New Brunswick. It houses nine small stores selling clothing to diet supplements to services like computer repair and a coffee shop.
On Wednesday morning, over 100 people went through its big doors.
Fewer than one would hope for but far from a worst-case scenario.
They were greeted by taped arrows on the floor, hand sanitizer stations and proprietors who, in many cases, they considered friends.
“There has been a lot of hardship,” said Davidson of what the prolonged closure has meant for retail.
“But (this morning) there were a lot of happy faces of people seeing each other for first time in two months.”
