Vacancies in Queenstown’s central shopping district are set to increase as Camp St retailers Decode and Ivan Clarke Gallery confirm their closures.
Decode director Shelley Alexander, who had tried to sell, said the store had to downsize in response to the economic climate "and given the size of our store that just didn’t correlate with the downtown lease costs any more".
"We’ve also noticed the decline in the number of locals that want to come into downtown Queenstown — and for reasons we hear repeatedly such as carparking and traffic.
"It felt like a lot of responsibility and risk in this day and age for a single retailer to have an independent boutique in downtown Queenstown."
She agreed it was sad to lose independently-owned stores.
"I think people enjoy the individuality of boutiques and, yes, it’s the changing nature of downtown Queenstown, unfortunately."
Acclaimed New Zealand artist Ivan Clarke, whose gallery sells both his paintings and Lonely Dog artworks, said his new plan was to simplify and take his home gallery, in Bob’s Cove, "up a few notches".
He said Camp St’s Forge Building had been great — "I think it’s one of the best gallery spaces in the whole town because of its height" — and his landlord had been supportive.
However, sales had not matched the gallery’s seeming busyness "and I think that’s very much the town at large".
Both the independent stores had been in Camp St for more than 20 years.
Decode will close at the end of the month while Ivan Clarke Gallery will close in a few months’ time.
DFS Group’s high-end T Galleria store, in O’Connells Building, closed in September and Torpedo7 is due to shut in February.
