Remodeling will make jewelry store smaller
CHAMPAIGN — Christopher's Fine Jewelry Design in downtown Champaign has closed for remodeling and expects to reopen later this week in a smaller space.
Co-owner Lois Wacholtz said the store plans to keep its frontage at 124 N. Neil St., C, but lease out the back portion.
As for what customers can expect to see once remodeling is done, Wacholtz said: "The windows will stay the same. There will be more wall (display) cases and fewer floor cases, and a fair amount of new inventory when we're up and running."
When complete, the retail space will be about 900 square feet, compared with the 2,000 square feet the store had before, she said.
Wacholtz said she and co-owner Christopher Jupp had been thinking about shrinking the space for a couple years.
"There's no real need to have as much inventory on hand as there used to be," Wacholtz said. "Our focus more and more the last several years has been custom design and custom orders."
Customers love to look at jewelry, she said, "but more and more, they're taking ideas away and having them custom-produced. It just became obvious we didn't need as much display space on hand for inventory."
Wacholtz said she hopes to rent out the back of the building, perhaps for a restaurant.
"We plan to put a doorway in on the Taylor Street side, so it's accessible from that side," she said.
That entrance would be just east of the stairwell that leads down to Christopher's production studio, she added.
Wacholtz said she expects the store to reopen Friday or Saturday, but if customers need Christopher's services before then, they can call.
"We won't be completely finished, but we'll be open by the end of the week again and have out as much as we can," she said.
Fight the traffic? What, are we in Chicago? The traffic in this town is up where all the chain retailers are. It's a shame that people continue to spend there hard earned money at chain stores that take that money right out of the community. Some day we will learn, but I'm afraid it will be too late.
To allergic to stupid. I suppose the work you do is worth nothing. You expect someone to make a custon piece and give you service but you think you don't have to pay for that? I have had a few pieces done at Christopher's in the past. I feel the value of the artwork and the service I received were well worth the little extra I had to spend. It was not that much more than the factory pieces with lower quality gems that was available to me at the "over the counter" stores.
To allergic to stupid. I suppose the work you do is worth nothing. You expect someone to make a custon piece and give you service but you think you don't have to pay for that? I have had a few pieces done at Christopher's in the past. I feel the value of the artwork and the service I received were well worth the little extra I had to spend. It was not that much more than the factory pieces with lower quality gems that was available to me at the "over the counter" stores.
Well, I guess if you have thousands of dollars laying around than that would be the way to go! Good for you! You can customize just as nice of pieces of jewelry from other stores in town. Maybe if they werent so overpriced they would have more clientel. I had a piece designed there, went to another jewelry store in town, same exact piece was $1350.00 cheaper, and the employees were nicer. To each their own.
Did you even read the comments? Who said anything about walmart? Just because someone doesnt shop at your snooty, overpriced, downtown jewelry store does not mean they shop at walmart. I prefer less traffic, no meters, and friendly employees. All of which you cant get at Christophers.
So, I assume you go to WalMart, you assume it's "my" jewelry store...actually lately my regular jeweler has been Robert's, but I'm sure I could walk into Christopher's and feel welcome and be treated well...in just the same way they treat all customers. Guess we should stop assuming. My error.
I love downtown Champaign and will go out of my way to shop downtown or from any locally owned business. I look forward to Christopher's new look. A smaller, more intimate space seems quite acceptable to me.
On the next sunny warm Saturday, park your car downtown and take a walk. Window shop. Grab a pastry and a cup of coffee. People watch. Daydream. It's one of my favorite things to do. You might enjoy it, too.
Snooty, overpriced, downtown jewelry store. How far we have dropped down the ladder. When I was a child my Great Grandparents would take us downtown to jewelery stores, be it Champaign or Teutopolis. It was a wounderful occasion to be able to walk the streets not an oversized parking lot. Market Place was the demise of small town pleasures like this but when the big box stores came, it was over for ever. Take a drive through all the small towns in central Illinois these days and you will see that they are just ghost towns now. Where once stood grocery, hardware and general stores, now are just hollow buildings. You really can't blame the kids from these towns moving on to Champaign, there isnt anything left in there towns to stay. But it has ruined a whole culture and with the ideas that some impart "snooty", it will never come back.
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