By gloria stravelli
Staff Writer
LINDSEY SIEGLE David Prown will close Prown’s Has Everything, a Broad Street retailer in Red Bank for 77 years, to focus on serving home improvement needs.
The end of the era of neighborhood stores, where shopkeepers knew customers by name, came belatedly to Red Bank, some say decades later than in most other towns.
"Red Bank’s been lucky to have Prown’s for as long as it has, because stores like Prown’s disappeared 20 or 30 years ago in many towns," Mary Mann said of the announcement that the variety store that has been a downtown landmark for 77 years will close next month.
"It is bad when you lose something beloved, but there are very few 100-year-old retailers," noted Mann, who stepped down as executive director of RiverCenter last month. It’s sad and we should all note the passing, but we can’t re-create it. This is a tough game, and a game predicated upon change. You have to be able to change.
"It would be worse to lose David (Prown) than to lose Prown’s," she continued. "You’re losing the retail aspect, but he has been growing another part of his business. He has adapted to changing times. That’s why Prown’s outlived Woolworth’s. He’s been working on figuring out what part of his business to expand. David has been thinking about the future for a while."
"The era of the small business is over," concurred David Prown, third-generation owner of the variety store affectionately known as Prown’s Has Everything. "It’s the end of one era for Prown’s, and we’re embarking on another. It’s time to transition."
Last week, Prown announced he would close the retail five-and-dime founded by his grandfather, Max, in 1925 and concentrate on the thriving home improvement arm of the business.
Citing the changing demographics and competition from big-box stores, wholesale clubs and the Internet, Prown said the retail operation had been losing money for more than a decade.
"Obviously we’re sorry to see Prown’s go," said Chris Cole, chairman of RiverCenter, the nonprofit corporation that administers the borough’s Special Improvement District. "But I’ve talked to him and completely understand his reasons for closing. It’s the evolution of retail. All these larger, big-box stores in Eatontown and Middletown are offering the same products at lower prices, and people are driving there rather than shopping at Prown’s."
The closing of Prown’s will add another vacancy to the downtown, which recently saw the closing of the Bon-Ton department store as well. But the turnover does not indicate problems in the downtown, Cole said.
"This is retail. We live with it every day," noted Cole, who, as managing partner of Terranomics, oversees The Grove at Shrewsbury.
According to Cole, change is a constant in the downtown, where few current tenants have been in place for any longer than seven years.
"The downtown is constantly evolving," he said. "Some things work and others don’t; that’s what keeps it interesting and exciting, and it keeps shoppers coming back."
Mann said the closing of Prown’s reflects local and global retail trends.
"It happens locally but is part of a global situation," she said.
"Mom-and-pop (stores) find it almost impossible to compete with chains that can outprice them and can stock anything."
It’s certain that the new tenant won’t be a five-and-dime, but the space vacated by Prown’s will be marketed for retail use to a high-end tenant.
"It’s a great piece," commercial realty broker Geoff Brothers said Tuesday.
Brothers, of Brothers Commercial Brokerage, will market the three-story, turn-of-the-century building at 32 Broad St. for owner Gerald Eisner.
Brothers said the firm will aggressively market the 7,000-square-foot first-floor retail space at $25 per square foot.
The building’s upper floors have been unoccupied since a law firm moved out approximately five years ago.
Global trends and big-box stores notwithstanding, Prown said the change that had the most impact on Prown’s was the closing of Woolworth’s Five and Dime, located a block south on Broad Street, in 1999. That event changed the profile of the downtown shopper, he said.
"When Woolworth’s left town, those customers left town," he noted. "The number of customers changed, sales changed, everything changed.
"Woolworth’s closing affected us in two ways," he continued. "It took our customers out of town and it was the linchpin that changed the nature of the stores coming into Red Bank that brought customers into Red Bank."
The decrease in business was so significant that Prown began to think about the possibility of having to close the store, he recalled.
"We shared the same customers," he explained. "The drop in business was immediate and significant. That’s when I really started thinking."
At the same time, the store’s home improvement division, which was added to the business following World War II, is "robust, accounting for one-third of Prown’s business and contributing two-thirds of the profits," Prown said.
"In good times and bad times, the home improvement division made money," he said, citing escalating real estate values in the county over the past five years and a strong resale market for high-priced, single-family homes.
Prown said he’ll continue to grow this part of the company, which he has managed since joining the family business in 1989, and will continue doing business at 32 Broad St. while he seeks a showroom in the Red Bank area.
"If you need someone to come to your house, you want someone you can trust," said Prown, noting that Prown’s doesn’t use subcontractors but maintains a staff of longtime employees, including Billy Clayton, who has been with the company for 23 years, and Barbara Schwarz, a 27-year employee.
"We kill the competition," he said. "Home Depot is fine for the do-it-yourselfer, but they hire subcontractors, and you don’t know who they are."
Although he didn’t announce his decision until the early hours of New Year’s Day, Prown said he’s known since last summer that Prown’s would close.
Only eight of 24 employees will be retained.
"The decision to close the retail operation was a solitary decision," Prown explained.
"Someone just had to make a decision," he said. "To keep employees, you have to make money. There was no magic to doing retail we hadn’t already tried. I was the one who decided, but when I told them, they nodded their heads."
Founded by Max Prown in 1925 at 47 Broad St., the store was destroyed by a fire in August 1960, and Prown’s reopened at its present location six months later.
Although the demographics and the character of the downtown have changed, Prown’s has remained a constant, Prown said.
"The store has been the same since 1960 — things are still in the same place they were — and that may have been our downfall in some respects," Prown observed.
"We were very reliable and stable and unchanging in a good way. We didn’t go upscale," he added. "We knew who we were, and we liked it."