Vendor mall with 40 to 50 small shops coming to vacant CT building

No longer a site for manufacturing crowns and dentures, the former Yankee Dental lab just off the Silas Deane Highway in Wethersfield is going to be renovated as a vendors mall for arts, crafts, clothing, decor and more.The town recently gave residents Brian Couzens and Freya Van-Cleve permission to turn most of the building into small spaces for 40 to 50 vendors who will sell goods there.“We are looking to take the old Yankee Dental factory and turn it into a vendor mall. We’re looking to keep the structure the same, turn the back 60 percent into essentially a flea market,” Couzens told the Planning and Zoning Commission in May. “It’s open vendor space, they rent the space and bring in the goods.”But Couzens was quick to point out that the level of merchandise will be very unlike what’s sold at flea markets.“It’s not flea market quality, it’s all going to be vintage items,” Couzens told the commission. “Mid-century artwork, jewelry, clothing, decorative accessories, seasonal items.”Van-Cleve’s mother has run estate sales for more than 20 years, and she, Van-Cleve and Couzens all decided to try a business based on the vendors mall concept.“We’re all getting too old to do the estate sales piece of it, so were looking to do something where we set something up, bring in 40 to 50 vendors, let them sell their goods,” Couzens said. “We have control over who sells what so we can be a little more selective as far as how many different types of categories are being sold.”Vendors will be responsible for choosing quality merchandise and keeping up the condition of their floor space. That means Couzens and Van-Cleve won’t have the concerns about staffing that traditional stores encounter. Couzens said that model has given the vendor mall industry a 92 percent success rate in the country.“We’ve already gotten a huge response from vendors,” he said.The operation plans to be open Tuesdays through Sundays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and on Fridays and Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.The mall would probably have a single employee to process purchases from any of the small shops, Couzens said. Vendors often don’t staff their booths, he said, noting that some operate in numerous locations at the same time such as Worcester and Northampton.The site of a planned vendors mall in Wethersfield. (Don Stacom/The Hartford Courant)Vendors will rent booths of 10 by 10 feet or 12 by 12 feet, and display merchandise that would have a barcode for checkout.“They’re able to go in and UPC code each item. They can figure out what they’re selling, what they’ve sold,” he said.That system lets each vendor know when they’re running low on merchandise so they can restock promptly.“They’re usually pretty good about it because they’re paying rent, they want to make sure they’re getting a return on what they put in,” he said.“You would shop throughout the booths. In essence it would be like going into a retail store; you would shop a department,” Couzens told Commissioner George Oickle.“A lot of these vendors have multiple shops in other jurisdictions. There’s Keystone in western Massachusetts; there’ll be some that are in Worcester or Northampton,” Couzens said. “So they aren’t actually there to man the booth. We would employ someone or one of us would be there to man the ship.”Keystone Vintage Market in Easthampton is typical of vendor malls, with a mix of vendors selling everything from retro clothing and lighting to kitchen items and art prints.“Since each one of our vendors brings in different types of merchandise, it leads to a very unique shopping experience,” the business says on its website.

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