Moves, Closings & Openings

Some new developments are cropping up in and around Traverse City. Here’s the latest:

Jack’s Market
The downtown TC liquor store, which has stood at 448 East Front Street since 1948, is closing its doors this summer. Owner Lynn Fricke has sold the building, confirms son and general manager Patrick Gorman. The store, which is now leasing the space, will remain open “at least through the summer festivals,” he says.

Sales and traffic have never been a problem for the family business, Gorman says. “I’ve been doing this since I was 21. I’m 34 now. There’s just other things I want to pursue,” he explains. A crew of four staffs the seven-day-a-week open market. “It’s bitter sweet. It’s just kind of the evolution of things.”

What the buyer intends to do with the space has not yet been revealed. It won’t, however, remain a liquor store, Gorman confirms; Jack’s retail license is being sold separately.

Goodwill Industries of Northern Michigan 
The non-profit is looking to build a new store at the corner of M-72 just south of US-31 in Acme. If the Acme Planning Commission agrees at its meeting April 23, Goodwill will demolish the former Real Estate One office currently at the site and erect a 12,000-square-foot retail store and donation center – its fifth in the region.

Ruth Blick, director of marketing and communications for GINM, tells The Ticker the expansion is by demand: “Our South Airport store in Traverse City is actually the busiest store in the state. Obviously, if you drive by, the lot is usually packed, there’s always a lineup for donations. There’s a big demographic – folks coming from Antrim and the east side – that this store will make more convenient for shoppers.”

Ticker Tally: Last year, the South Airport Goodwill store had 213,357 customer transactions, donations from 8,800 people, and did $2.5 million in sales. That support translated to 14,238 services to more than 7,100 people in northern Michigan and the distribution of 500,000 pounds of food to local food pantries, community meals and shelters.

Brick Packaging
The TC company founded in 2003 to supply glass bottles, corks, barrels and more to the region’s wine industry, is booming. Now, with clients throughout the Midwest, and warehouses in Colorado and Indiana, Brick is breaking out of the 22,000-square-foot warehouse on Barlow Road in TC and moving on up to a 40,000-square-foot space at Traversefield Enterprise Place, home to local arm of worldwide shipping agent FedEx.

Linda Brick, co-owner of Brick Packaging with her husband, Dan, says the company aims to be in its new home by early summer and is considering leasing any extra warehouse space Brick doesn’t need to some of the local wineries it serves.