The store prevents reusable doors, plumbing, roofing, sinks and other home-improvement supplies from ending up in landfills, encourages home improvement and provides financial support for other Habitat for Humanity operations, said Restore Manager Valerie Claggett.
Since opening on North Street, the ReStore has made more than 8,000 sales, said Clark County Community Habitat for Humanity Executive Director Matt Wilson. The store will be closed to the public until mid-December, when it will open at its new location.
“It’s an adaptive reuse, taking something that was a manufacturing structure and turning it into a ReStore. The fewer vacant buildings we have around downtown Springfield, the better,” said Claggett. “The concern was not just to exist as a business enterprise, but also really to fulfill our mission and provide a service and be in the neighborhoods where our customers are.”
The new building at 259 S. Wittenberg Ave. is a former manufacturing facility and will house both a larger ReStore and office space for the other Habitat administrators to share. Claggett said that the location is also closer to where many of their customers live.
“We do get a lot of patronage from that general neighborhood,” Wilson said. “There’s a lot of revitalization and rehab work going on, so we get a lot of people coming in looking for odds and ends to match the original architecture in their house.”
The new building will reduce overhead costs and is near several other properties and land parcels owned by the nonprofit, giving the ReStore the flexibility to expand in the future, said Wilson.
Claggett said the store has seen an increase in the number of local homeowners seeking materials for home repairs, some of whom are using the store’s second-hand supplies to fix up gutted houses and foreclosures.
Lori Fulk, president of the Springfield Board of Realtors, said that while there have been fewer bank-owned properties on the market recently, she thinks more homeowners are using ReStore services.
“I think what’s happened is the increase we’ve seen in Clark and Champaign County has been more the existing homes and not so much the distressed homes,” she said. “Some of the investors are honing in on that Restore, I’ve been hearing that more and more, what investors we do have in our market are going to the store … making that an opportunity at first before they head to the Lowes or the Home Depots.”
Benjamin Babian, president of South Fountain Preservation Inc., said that he’s noticed the great work that Habitat for Humanity has done for his neighborhood and the adjacent Promise Neighborhood and is supportive of the group’s move into the area.
“It’s fantastic that they’re staying downtown and using an old building,” said Babian. “Having strong urban neighborhoods is important for lots of different reasons. It keeps Springfield healthy.”
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