GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — A trio of popular antique stores in Grand Rapids will again live to see another day.
For the past month, their future has appeared uncertain amid the potential closure of the Sligh building, a former furniture factory on Century Avenue that has long housed Warehouse One Antiques, Century Antiques and Lost and Found Treasures of Old and New.
On Monday, a settlement conference was held at 17th Circuit Court in Kent County to discuss the feasibility of plans to improve the building's physical condition and cash flow and, if possible, permit the stores to continue to do business in the space.
"I feel like it's a yes-and-we'll-see," Mark Miller, co-owner of Lost and Found Treasures of Old and New said to FOX 17 on Monday.
"I think there's more hope," he said. "Absolutely more hope than there was a couple of weeks ago."
Earlier this month, a judge denied a motion to close the building, which came months after it was placed into a receivership — a court-ordered remedy in which a neutral third-party is appointed to manage property during a legal dispute — after its owner failed to pay loans on the property.
"This is an untenable situation but you are not being evicted now," Hon. Curt A. Benson said at the time.
"What the future of this building is, who knows?"
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Now, after the involved parties in the settlement conference met behind closed doors on Monday, the future is clearer.
According to Sara Lachman, an attorney representing the antique stores, the building's lender and court-appointed receiver are "comfortable" with the stores doing business in the building and, amid already completed and planned repairs, want to see a return to the "status quo."
"I think the 'status quo' means we're staying," Miller said. "I think there's a better appreciation for what we're doing in the building and it would really be worse for everybody if the building sat vacant."
While a number of repairs still need to be made, the stores' leases are month-to-month and the building, which remains in a receivership, could still be sold to an owner who wants to tear it down or reinvent the space, Miller considers Monday's outcome a "gift."
"Almost like a Christmas gift," he said. "A little holiday relief so we can focus on the business of doing business, which is great."
Grand Rapids
