A new for-profit thrift store opened its doors on University Avenue on Thursday in a ceremony filled with balloons and music – but already burdened with the job of doing damage control with its neighbors. Savers Thrift Store opened at 1414 University Ave., the former site of Andronico’s, on the heels of a lawsuit that gave the building’s owners exclusive rights to the adjacent parking lot, which had once been shared by neighboring businesses. The decision to only allow Savers customers to use the lot prompted nearby residents to threaten to boycott Savers. “We’ve always wanted a store in Berkeley because our stores do best with a very broad demographic,” Savers president and CEO Ken Alterman said at the ribbon-cutting. Berkeley is the 330th location for Savers, a Washington-based for-profit thrift store company with shops around the country and in Canada. Each Savers has a nonprofit charity partner that receives a cut from each item donated to the store. The Berkeley branch is the eighth Savers in Northern California. Savers’ arrival immediately caught the attention of neighboring businesses and caused a dispute over the parking lot. The lot, which sits between the Savers building and a string of businesses known […]
A new for-profit thrift store opened its doors on University Avenue on Thursday in a ceremony filled with balloons and music – but already burdened with the job of doing damage control with its neighbors. Savers Thrift Store opened at 1414 University Ave., the former site of Andronico’s, on the heels of a lawsuit that gave the building’s owners exclusive rights to the adjacent parking lot, which had once been shared by neighboring businesses. The decision to only allow Savers customers to use the lot prompted nearby residents to threaten to boycott Savers. “We’ve always wanted a store in Berkeley because our stores do best with a very broad demographic,” Savers president and CEO Ken Alterman said at the ribbon-cutting. Berkeley is the 330th location for Savers, a Washington-based for-profit thrift store company with shops around the country and in Canada. Each Savers has a nonprofit charity partner that receives a cut from each item donated to the store. The Berkeley branch is the eighth Savers in Northern California. Savers’ arrival immediately caught the attention of neighboring businesses and caused a dispute over the parking lot. The lot, which sits between the Savers building and a string of businesses known […]