Woodsville
“I’m sorry to see them go,” said Joyce Hassell, a retiree from Benton, said, moments after exiting the Central Street store with a new pair of gloves (originally $45, she got them for $23). “I always have a good experience there.”
Tom Hubert, whose parents opened the first Hubert’s in 1972, gathered the staff together in early December and told them he’d made a difficult decision to close the Woodsville outlet.
“Obviously, it’s disappointing to feel that closing a store location is the best decision for the company as a whole,” Hubert said in an interview on Saturday.
The company also recently announced it is closing its Goffstown, N.H., store, which it opened in 2012. The chain’s locations in Newport, New London, Claremont, Lebanon and Peterborough, N.H., will remain open.
“The other stores are in solid markets that have been stable or shown growth,” Hubert said. “We’re confident that those stores will remain open.”
Hubert said the closure timeline will depend on how long it takes the inventory to sell out, but he expected the store’s final day to be no later than March. The company will seek a tenant to occupy the storefront, with a long-term plan to sell the building.
Three full-time and six part-time staff members have been offered a bonus to stay throughout the store’s final days, and have been offered jobs at the company’s other locations, according to Hubert.
“The business decision is pretty easy. If you’re not seeing a profit, and the future doesn’t look brighter, it’s not really a difficult decision to think you can invest time and effort elsewhere,” he said. “The challenging part of the closing is the people. We treat our staff like family. They are people we care about. It was very difficult to tell them that we had to close the store.”
Hubert said the venture began well when he opened the location 20 years ago to occupy a storefront that had previously been owned by Hovey’s Shops Inc.
“The first 10 years, it seemed vibrant and turned a profit,” he said.
Hubert said the chain has outlived many competitors by, in part, stocking high-quality and durable items for which New Englanders have a daily need.
“In many ways, we’re dinosaurs. The small, locally owned retailer is close to extinction.”
But, in Woodsville at least, the ledger began running red 10 years ago. “Over the last decade it’s been more challenging,” Hubert said. “We stuck with it, hoping it would turn around.”
The store’s troubles coincide with a variety of challenges facing retailers in Woodsville, Haverhill and throughout the region.
After 40 years of significant growth, between 1970 and 2010, Haverhill has begun to lose population in recent years, from an all-time high of 4,697 in 2010 to an estimated 4,650 in 2015, according to US Census estimates.
At the same time, retailers in Woodsville and elsewhere are facing an increasingly tight squeeze from big-box stores, such as the Wal-Mart Supercenter built in 2008 just 1.3 miles down Route 302, and from Internet retailers such as Amazon.
Hubert said his hope was that Wal-Mart would prove to be the leading indicator of an influx of big-box stores that would increase the population and expand his customer base.
“We hoped it would bring other retailers with it, and Woodsville would be more of a shopping destination.” Instead,” he said, “if you look at the town as a whole, there have been fewer retailers.”
Two storefronts in the building next to Hubert’s are vacant, while two others on Central Street have recently been filled by salons, a service industry that isn’t as threatened by online competitors.
Hubert’s is a member of the Cohase Chamber of Commerce, which hosted an economic summit on Dec. 5, at which it was made clear that Woodsville is not alone in it struggle to build a vibrant local business communities, according to Erik Volk, executive director of the Chamber.
“I don’t think Woodsville is unique. Bradford is facing the same thing. Most of the towns that have downtown centers are struggling with empty storefronts,” Volk said.
Volk said he spends much of his time at the Chamber trying to remind people who chase good deals of the benefits of shopping locally, which include supporting local jobs, locally made products, and keeping money circulating within the community.
“This is the future of your community,” he said. “You may think it’s a bargain you’re getting, but it’s not much of a bargain when your community is filled with empty storefronts.”
Customers who shopped at Hubert’s on Friday said they’ll miss the store.
For her, Hassell said, stores like Hubert’s hit a sweet spot that she can’t find elsewhere. Plus, internet retailers have the same brands, but she can’t try them on.
“Just because they look good on a clothes rack doesn’t mean they look good on a person,” she said.
Meanwhile, big-box stores like Wal-Mart allow customers to try clothing on, but they don’t have her favorite high-quality brands, such as Habitat and Carhartt.
“There’s really no place else to get that kind of stuff in town,” she said.
Howard Stevens, a 54-year-old dairy farmer, walked out with a new pair of boots and got into his pickup. He said he likes the convenience of Hubert’s to his home, which is only two miles away. “They’re $50 boots. I got them for $40,” he said. “They’re good boots, and it’s a good store.”
Justin Roy, manager of Modern Furniture, a large store just up the street from Hubert’s, said he likes to support local businesses. He said the two stores both make the same argument to local blue-collar workers and hunters who appreciate products — boots or beds — that will last over time. “You get what you pay for,” he said.
But other customers said price is important, too.
“I follow the sales,” said Regis Roy, a retired schoolteacher who used a gift certificate to purchase a dress and a pair of socks.
While she keeps an eye on Hubert’s sales, Roy said, the cost of sale items rarely dipped low enough to draw her in. “The prices are high,” she said. “Some of the staff are very nice, but others aren’t that friendly.”
But even Roy — who said, on balance, she doesn’t value the Hubert’s shopping experience very highly — cares about the presence of a local retailer in town. “I’ll miss having a full storefront downtown,” she said.
Hubert said he was proud of the way he and his siblings and their families have, after inheriting a single store from their parents, built the chain as it exists today. Despite the closures, he said, the chain as a whole remains a legacy that carries a wide range of possibilities for the next generation.
“Is there potential for one of my nieces or nephews or grandchildren to take the ball and run with it to make something larger?” Hubert asked. “The potential certainly exists. As long as they’re willing to work hard at it.”
Matt Hongoltz-Hetling can be reached at mhonghet@vnews.com or 603-727-3211.