After raising five sons and selling specially designed jewelry for the past quarter century, Amanda Pinson is closing her store in Warehouse Row at the end of the month.
"My lease is coming up this fall and I had my 70th birthday last March and I just decided that I would like to travel and do things with my family and I didn't want to sign another 5-year lease and be 75 years old when I left the business," Pinson said. "The business has been great and I love my customers and Warehouse Row, but I'm ready for the next chapter in my life."
The 1,800-square-foot boutique shop, which Pinson has operated on the first floor of Warehouse Row for more than a decade, will shut down on Oct. 30.
Pinson has operated a jewelry store in Chattanooga since she moved from her hometown in Nashville in 2002 to open her original store on 13th Street along with Revival in the building that now houses the Urban Stack restaurant. Amanda Pinson Jewelry moved into Warehouse Row in 2010 along with the Revival and Embellish boutiques.
Since her name is on the business and the jewelry reflects her style, Pinson said it didn't make sense to try to sell the store brand, which she first began out of her Nashville home in 1996.
"I first partnered with an artist in New York who made jewelry from my design sketches, and this initially got the ball rolling," Pinson said. "I didn't start out knowing that I wanted to open a brick-and-mortar store, but after three years of running a business out of my home, I began looking for a retail space to open a jewelry store with a curated selection of my favorite jewelry designers. We've had great designers and loyal customers and it's been a very successful 20 years."
Warehouse Row remains about 90% leased and continues to sign new leases, according to the owners of the 5-story office, retail and restaurant complex.
Boyd Simpson, CEO of the Atlanta-based Simpson Organization which bought Warehouse Row in 2016 when it also bought the SunTrust Bank building and began redeveloping the 700 block of Market Street, said "retailers have been under a lot of stress and we've had some turnover.
"But we do have several new leases at Warehouse Row that are almost completed which will pretty much bring the retail there back to full occupancy," Simpson said. "Overall our leasing has been improving at all three of our properties in Chattanooga."
The Simpson Organization owns and leases millions of square feet of commercial building space across seven Southeastern states and Simpson said leasing activity continues to improve this year.
"We're seeing across our portfolio a lot of our office tenants deferring their full return to work schedules, but we continue to sign large leases with many companies that are now expanding their spaces," he said. "I think the fear that the office market has been permanently changed by remote work is overblown."
In Chattanooga, Simpson said the SunTrust Building is now about 55% occupied. At the Market City Center in the 700 block of Market Street, the residential portion of the building is now over 95% leased and the first-floor retail is about 70% occupied. There are no office tenants on the second floor commercial part of the Market City Center as yet, Simpson said.
Contact Dave Flessner at dflessner@timesfreepress.com or at 423-757-6340.