Company’s bankruptcy closing craft store

Rag Shop leaving Marketplace Shopping Center

By:Audrey Levine
   Tape hangs in an "x" across several of the aisles, adorned with signs that read "closed" and "caution."
   Empty shelves line the walls as loyal Manville customers purchase the last remnants of the once profitable craft store.
   The 61 Rag Shop stores nationwide, including one in the Marketplace at Manville on North Main Street, will close their doors after declaring Chapter 11 in April and being sold to a liquidation company, DJM Realty, in June.
   "There is no specific date yet for the closing," Donna Radzik, assistant manager in Manville, said Monday. "At least 15 stores between Pennsylvania and New Jersey have already closed."
   The store has been a fixture in Manville for many years, even after moving to the Marketplace Shopping Center after years as one of the anchor stores in the Rustic Mall.
   "The store moved when the Marketplace was built to have a bigger store," she said. "But we have had great Manville customers. It is a good central location between Bridgewater and Princeton."
   According to Ms. Radzik, many organizations, schools and even the borough itself had accounts with the Rag Shop and would purchase items for home economics departments and other projects there.
   The company was purchased by Sun Capital Partners, Inc., a finance company, in 2004. Ms. Radzik said the Rag Shop stayed under the new management for four years, which she cites as being unusual for a finance company.
   "About a year ago, upper management tried to change the store," she said. "They wanted to turn it more into a home decorating place."
   Ms. Radzik said she believes this change hurt the company because many customers were accustomed to being able to purchase inexpensive craft items for projects and other needs.
   "We lost a lot of the craft people," she said. "People went for the more expensive items instead."
   While the problem was not unique to the Manville location, Ms. Radzik said that it became too late to change the store’s methods of doing business and they had to close because they weren’t serving as many customers as they once were.
   "We had been in trouble the past couple of years," she said. "But it was too late to make any changes."