Emporium Square opened in the pandemic, but that wasn’t only factor at odds with its success
When Emporium Square opened in August 2020, it promised to offer an innovative twist on the typical strip mall store and the flea market that came before it: a 50,000 square-foot artisan market.
At a time when traditional malls and brick-and-mortar retail are ailing, the Middletown market was a sign that the right idea could reinvent a stale format.
Its owner, Orlando Lallave, was the last remaining tenant of the site’s former flea market when he decided to rent out the entire space himself, renovate it, and fill it with artisan boutiques — offering an affordable, low-risk way for makers to enter the brick-and-mortar world, creating an in-person Etsy experience.
“People’s desire to have a personalized shopping experience is not dead,” he said last spring. “The need for a tangible, unique shopping experience is still there.”
The knock against it, it seemed, was the timing: it opened in the pandemic.
Now, over a year into its experiment, the store announced on Jan. 7 that it would be closing its doors at the end of the month.
“We had hoped that Emporium Square would one day be an Orange County destination that would last well beyond our vision,” the market’s managing partner, Barbara Martinez, wrote on Instagram. “We set out to open our doors to help support small businesses and we were true to our mission.”
Beyond stating on the post that “it was hard to shake off the stigma of being identified as a flea market,” however, Martinez offered no concrete reason for the closing.
In speaking to Martinez, however, it’s clear the decision came down to more than just a problem of perception.
“The facility we’re in, 40 percent of the roof leaks,” she said by phone. “So even though we signed a lease for 10 years and they promised to make repairs to the roof … we’ve only been able to use 60 percent of the building.”
The mall’s ownership has since changed hands. But for the past three years, Martinez and Lallave have been battling a lawsuit filed against them by the original owner, LGP Capital LLC, over back rent for the unusable portion of the store.
“We have a court date on Jan. 20 where we’ll find out whether we’ll win or lose,” said Martinez.
“The risk of losing would destroy us — it would bankrupt us. This is our lives. Losing our business would not only affect the 65 merchants that we have under our roof, it would affect us personally and it just became too much of a chance,” she continued.
But the lawsuit wasn’t the only factor in the decision — a lack of foot traffic also held the market back from realizing its revenue goals.
“People are not shopping. They’re not coming out. So the foot traffic has never been where we thought it should be.”
The lack of shoppers in turn impacted the merchants who rented space in the market. Each artisan is a small business in and of itself, and some struggled to stay afloat, making it difficult for them to continue renting from Emporium Square, as affordable as it is. A 10×10 foot space cost $300 a month, with no long-term lease required.
“The constant leaving of merchants and finding new merchants to replace [them] just made it difficult to sustain Emporium,” said Martinez.
The lack of a lease commitment may have made it easy for some vendors to leave, but it also gave them a safe way to test out a brick-and-mortar business. One vendor, Gold Star Chimney Cakes, has been with the market since it opened. Another, Jennifer Martinez (no relation to Barbara), joined Emporium in September 2021 in part because the month-to-month, affordable lease made it easy for her to make the leap from selling online to also having a physical presence. Since opening a corner booth at the market, she says the sales for her floral business, Eternal Bouquets by JM, have tripled.
“We did great and we are very grateful for the exposure we got — and for the experience,” said Jennifer Martinez. Though she added that customer turnout was an issue at times, especially with the latest wave of COVID. “I don’t disagree that foot traffic could have been higher.”
The calculus was simple but heartbreaking, once Martinez and Lallave factored in everything at play: the pandemic, the pending court decision, and Emporium’s lack of in-person shoppers.
“Do we keep fighting for a market that was barely bringing in foot traffic?” Martinez asked. “We just don’t feel that we had the support of the community that we thought this market [and its merchants] deserved.”
Even Emporium’s announcement that it was soon closing didn’t compel shoppers to come out, said Martinez. “This past weekend our aisles were empty. No one came, even with the indication that we’re going to be closing our doors soon … we get why — the fear of COVID just makes it very difficult to trust coming out.”
Martinez has not given up on the business model, though. It just may require a different location, and a smaller footprint, something she has been considering.
“I think it was the right idea in the wrong location and at the wrong time,” she said.
