He bought 200,000 yards of fabric from a Leominster retailer to sell it at a discount.
In 2008, Saftler came up with a plan to keep the business going. Speculation about the store’s future has circulated since 2006, when Saftler tried to lease half of the space to another business. Other local fabric stores such as the Fabric Place in Randolph, Braid-Aid in Pembroke and Freddy Farkel’s in Avon closed in recent years. It moved to its current location, at routes 18 and 14, in 1937.Ī remnant of an age when it wasn’t unusual to buy fabric and sew clothing from scratch, the store had experienced a decline in business in the past decade.īusy lifestyles, chain competition and declining prices of inexpensive clothing from overseas dampened demand for fabric. Saftler’s grandfather Joseph started the business in 1919 on Star Street in Whitman. Mutual Bank acquired the loan from the original lender this year. Saftler said he fell behind on a $1.5-million loan on which the property had been pledged as collateral. “I called the (bank) board of directors and said, ‘Why do you want me out in 30 days? We’ve been an institution in this town.’” “If we were given time to have a good moving sale and sell down stuff, it would be fine, but they said we have 30 days to be out,” Saftler said. It is considering putting a bank there.Įric Saftler, who owns the fabric store, said he is looking for a new location. Mutual Bank of Whitman bought the 5-acre property for $1.6 million at a foreclosure auction. 30 after a local bank foreclosed on the property.
Saftler’s Fabrics, which has been on Route 18 in Whitman since the 1930s, has been ordered to move out by Nov.
0 kommentar(er)
