Many years ago, two long-running independent bookstores in Rutland closed their doors within a couple years of each other. Book King had been open for more than 40 years, and Annie\u2019s Book Stop for more than 30. But a couple years later, Rutland rallied together to bring a bookstore back.<\/p>\n
When Phoenix Books opened smack in the middle of downtown at 2 Center St. in 2015, with its beautiful marble facade and cozy interior, it was front-page news. The bookstore is celebrating its 10th anniversary in Rutland this year.<\/p>\n
It started when former Downtown Rutland Partnership director Mike Coppinger commissioned a study that showed where money was leaving Rutland County.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were a lot of empty storefronts at the time,\u201d said Steve Costello, who was then vice president for generation and energy innovation at Green Mountain Power. \u201cAnd a group of us were trying to recruit new businesses.\u201d<\/p>\n
When the study of underserved markets downtown showed bookstores right at the top of the list, GMP, the City of Rutland, the Chamber of Commerce, and the Partnership were among the organizations who jumped on it, plus a ton of community support.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody had a hand in it,\u201d Costello said.<\/p>\n
He started making cold calls to independent bookstores around Vermont, saying Rutland needed a bookstore, asking them to consider opening a branch here.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only one who returned my call was Mike DeSanto,\u201d Costello said.<\/p>\n
Michael DeSanto and Renee Reiner had founded Phoenix Books, opening a store in Essex in 2007 and another in Burlington in 2012. They were interested in Rutland. However, \u201cYou need a lot of cash up front to stock a store, and the only way he could envision doing it was if there was community support,\u201d Costello said.<\/p>\n
DeSanto and Reiner had opened Phoenix Books Burlington on a \u201ccommunity-supported enterprise\u201d model, after the Border\u2019s on Church Street in Burlington closed in 2011, and Reiner led a community campaign to finance a new store.<\/p>\n
\u201cMike said, \u2018Well, this is what I did in Burlington. If you can get 50 people who are willing to do a pre-buy of $1,000 worth of books (each), that will raise enough to get the inventory in,\u2019\u201d said Phoenix Rutland co-owner Tricia Huebner.<\/p>\n
\u201cLong story short: Within three weeks, we had $50,000 to basically pre-buy books,\u201d Costello said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo when they would come into the store it would just come off their account,\u201d Huebner said. \u201cSo they weren\u2019t losing anything, they were just kind of loaning the money to get the inventory in.\u201d<\/p>\n
It didn\u2019t take long, and DeSanto said back then, \u201cI sense when I come down here that the whole community is involved in wanting a bookstore.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMy husband and I did the thousand dollars, and Steve said, \u2018By the way, Mike\u2019s looking for a part-time owner-manager to invest more,\u2019\u201d Huebner recalled. \u201cAnd my dream was to own a bookstore. So we went in for that and 10 years later here we are. I\u2019m part-time owner and Michele (Farrington) is our manager, and we\u2019re going strong.\u201d<\/p>\n
A year after the Rutland branch opened, industry giant Publisher\u2019s Weekly named the Phoenix chain of independent bookstores in the nation\u2019s finalists for bookstore of the year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the reason this industry has picked up on what Phoenix Books has done is because two of our three bookstores used a community sustained enterprise model to open,\u201d Reiner said then. \u201cI think there has been a lot of enthusiasm for this model, and Publisher\u2019s Weekly and the industry says that\u2019s pretty cool that it can work in Vermont.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rutland resident and business owner Tom Calcagny said back then his $1,000 pre-buy was money well spent, adding that it supported downtown as a whole.<\/p>\n
MKF Properties Owner Mark Foley Jr. had worked with DeSanto to build out the space, and it has since hosted everything from author events to story walks, poetry readings, a chamber mixer; they participate in Friday Night Live, the Sidewalk Sales, the Whoopie Pie Festival, and that\u2019s only the tip of the iceberg.<\/p>\n
Huebner and Farrington regularly bring events to places like local schools, the Paramount Theatre, and Wonderfeet Kids\u2019 Museum, and they keep branching out \u2014 partnering with different community organizations for local events. Recently, the Feline Connection, a cat rescue nonprofit, brought their kittens for adoption to the store.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re amazing, and it\u2019s such a fun and interesting way to bring people downtown for different events,\u201d Farrington said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that\u2019s a big part of the success of all of their stores,\u201d Costello said. \u201cThey\u2019re very engaged in the community. And I don\u2019t know who buys their books, but I swear every time I go in, I find two or three things I wasn\u2019t looking for and have to read.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve grown, and we\u2019ve learned the community,\u201d Huebner said. \u201cWe\u2019ll find something that might not sell in the other stores, but that people in Rutland really like. I think 10 years have helped us fine-tune our understanding of what this community wants and needs, and buys and likes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a really great community,\u201d Farrington added. \u201cWe all love Rutland.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve had a lot of people from out of state over the summer, saying Rutland exceeded expectation and they loved Center Street and the vibe,\u201d Huebner said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s so gratifying when people get it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Many years ago, two long-running independent bookstores in Rutland closed their doors within a couple years of each…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":198831,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[223,88,3729,114701],"class_list":["post-198830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-books","tag-books","tag-entertainment","tag-local","tag-local_photos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198830"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198830\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}