@ Jazz Alley
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It looked for a little while like the Seattle branch of Everyday Music would be the latest record store to enter the crowded confines of the music shop morgue. After Sound Transit recently acquired the block that houses the store for transit development, the clock began ticking. With destruction set for Fall ‘08, the large store was biding its time and searching for a new space. But, as store manager David Miranda told Sound via email on March 28, things weren’t looking good.
“At this point we were supposed to be out by March 31st but were granted an extension until May 31st,” Miranda wrote. “So far we haven’t found a new location due to hyper-expensive rental rates and lack of large spaces to accommodate our method of conducting business.”
Miranda listed a few options available to Everyday Music, one that included an offer to have the Portland-based record store company buy out one of the city’s large locally-owned record stores. The manager, though, did not sound too optimistic about any of these options.
“[We have] searched high and low in each and every viable neighborhood here in Seattle with no luck,” Miranda wrote. “I have a staff of 15 who are all wondering if they’re going to have a job after May and I really don’t have anything to tell them. As you can imagine, it’s rather frustrating, not to mention I need to hire people because a couple of employees have already jumped ship and try interviewing someone with the disclaimer: you might not have a job after May if we hire you. Amazingly enough we were able to find some takers.”
It is now looking like those takers made a good decision in joining the EM team. Miranda emailed Sound today to tell us that one of the slim possibilities for a new location appears to be coming through. Even better, if the deal is finalized, Everyday Music will remain on Capitol Hill. And even better than that? The store will have the Jimi Hendrix statue right in front of it.
“Apparently the offer to rent the space on Pine/Broadway has been expected and now there is only a matter of signing the lease which should happen within the week,” Miranda writes. “If that goes well then we’ll start moving in mid-May. I honestly can’t believe that it worked out … especially to find another location on Broadway! It was really coming down to the wire.”
The space that Everyday Music might soon call home (fingers crossed) is the former home of a music licensing business called DMX, but has been vacant in the recent past. Miranda has no more information on how Everyday Music will use the space (though it is quite certain that it will mainly be used to buy and sell records), but we’ll keep bugging him so that we can bring you blueprints and power-pointed business plans as they become available.
To read more about the plight of the record store, pick up the April copy of Sound available at discerning record stores and newsstands everywhere (in Seattle).
PHOTO: The inside of Everyday Music’s Capitol Hill location, courtesy of EverydayMusicSpace
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