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Amendolaro believes the parking situation worsened after the switch from meters to kiosks downtown.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt went way downhill,\u201d he said. \u201cThe kiosks, number one, never work. Residents and people who work downtown park their cars and use the Pango app all day. The meters told people where to park. When they took those out, now it\u2019s just a free-for-all. In front of my stores, if people park out of sync \u2026 you\u2019re losing two spots.\u201d<\/p>\n
A shift in shopping trends has also impacted operations on Biden Street, Amendolaro said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t have the walk-in traffic that I used to,\u201d he said. \u201cWe used to be a very hot spot for people coming in and shopping. It\u2019s just times have changed, and a lot of people shop online anymore. The customers who come on the daily are driving and they have nowhere to park because I see the same cars on the street. The residents who live downtown come home from work at 5:30 on Friday, park the car on the street, and it sits there until Monday when they go back to work. I had a customer this Saturday say she had to drive around the block four times, and ended up parking down on Penn and walking. When city council had that idea of paying for parking on Saturdays, part of me wanted it to go through because you would get those people off the street.\u201d<\/p>\n
Amendolaro thinks the combination of better parking options and the ability to merge both stores into one space will benefit customers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I found that spot, it\u2019s perfect because I wanted to get everything under one roof,\u201d he said. \u201cYou can always find a (parking) spot on that block of Wyoming and if people don\u2019t want to pay to park, there is free parking on the block before it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the advantages, Amendolaro still struggled with the decision to move the stores.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t want to do it because I\u2019ve been here 14 years, and I didn\u2019t want to do it to the block,\u201d he said. \u201cTom Grudis (Optical) is leaving in a couple weeks, and then you\u2019re going to have three vacant storefronts right in a row. I don\u2019t want to see the downtown be vacant but I\u2019ve expressed my concerns for parking and they did nothing about it. I feel bad because there are some walk-in customers that I see a couple times a month. I\u2019m hoping when they get out of work, they\u2019ll take a drive down if they want to shop.\u201d<\/p>\n
Leslie Collins, president and CEO of Scranton Tomorrow, a nonprofit community and economic development organization, doesn\u2019t believe the buildings will remain empty for long.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you look at the statistics of the downtown, you have very little first-level storefront spaces that are unoccupied,\u201d she said. \u201cThey seem to turn over very quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Collins praised Amendolaro\u2019s commitment to improving the downtown throughout his long tenure along Spruce, and now Biden, Street.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe has been wonderful to work with on marketing and promotions,\u201d she said. \u201cI think he has a very good understanding of his market and how to attract various levels of customers. There is a price point for everyone and he has men\u2019s and women\u2019s clothing, and he moved into some houseware items.\u201d<\/p>\n
Additionally, Collins stressed Amendolaro continually looks for ways to evolve his business \u2014 including opening the live studio in 2022 \u2014 and feels he\u2019ll be successful on Wyoming Avenue.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s done a really great job reinventing himself throughout the years, making sure he remains relevant in the retail industry,\u201d she said. \u201cI think it makes sense to make changes to your business model, including your location, if you think it\u2019s the best thing for your customer base.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After more than a decade in the heart of downtown Scranton, Amendolaro Boutique will have a new home.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":173947,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[60,201,182,28,436,178,180,179,181],"class_list":["post-173946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-business","tag-lackawanna-county","tag-local-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-retail","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news","tag-top-stories-stt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173946\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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