The Queen Anne Silver Platters record and CD store is less than 2 years old, and the business has yet to turn a profit, according to majority owner Bob Scheulen.
And clouding the future even more, the real-estate division of Bartell Drugs - which is subleasing the 14,500-square-foot space to Platters - has posted for lease-signs on the side of the building. "We're just exploring options," said David Graef, manager of real estate and leasing for the drugstore company.
Bartell's has leased the property from the owner and had subleased the space to Tower Records when the now-defunct company moved from its old location just a block south on Mercer, Scheulen said.
Platters took over the sublease from the liquidation company that was in charge after Tower declared bankruptcy, he said. Platters - which also has stores in Northgate and Bellevue - had been looking for store space in Queen Anne and zeroed in on the Tower space after the company folded, Scheulen added. "We sort of jumped in without thinking."
Platters was able to renegotiate the lease for less rent late last year or early this year, he said. That helped to some degree, but Scheulen is counting on holiday sales to turn the business around. "It all depends on Christmas," he said. "That used to not be the case."
Another factor is the changing nature of the music business as more and more people download their music from the Internet rather than buy CDs or record albums, Scheulen conceded.
But he insisted there is still much to be said for going to an old-fashioned music store. "There's the whole experience of going in and buying the product and talking to people," Scheulen said.
About 20 percent of the 14 to 15 staff members at Platters are "walking encyclopedias," and 50 percent are "fairly knowledgeable," he said. The store has also been making changes to stay in business. "We've been moving more into used product," Scheulen said of a successful business model for many small music stores.
Scheulen, a former Microsoft worker, said he views the independent music business as a labor of love. "We're record junkies; we're not inherently business people," he said of himself and his partners.
What Scheulen and his partners would really like to see is Bartell's lease half the space to another business, he said. The may be possible, Graef said.
Then again, the entire space has drawn interest from a couple of suitors, Scheulen said. "I know one of them came pretty close, but they walked." It got so close, in fact, that architects stopped by to measure the space and were telling staff members it was a done deal, he said. "Obviously, it wasn't."[[In-content Ad]]
