Antique Stores Are Becoming an Endangered Species in Edmonds

For better or worse, downtown Edmonds is losing its reputation as a place for antiques.

It’s been five months since Edmonds Mercantile & Auction packed up and moved to Snohomish, a city that welcomes antique stores and is regarded as the place to go in Snohomish County if antiques are your thing.

The former Edmonds location of Edmonds Mercantile, formerly Country Cove at 529 Dayton Street, is now shuttered. Co-owners Mike O’Dell and Gayle Szalay kept the name of the store in Snohomish, which is actually two businesses in one: Edmonds Merchantile & Auction and Trader Mick’s Petticoat Lane Gallery.

The Snohomish location is in the heart of antique row on First Street, selling its wares from a 118-year-old building called the Alcazar Theater. “We like it in Snohomish,” O’Dell says. “Snohomish is an antique town, and we’re in the most photographed building in town.”

O’Dell says business in Edmonds grew so bad that some days he barely made enough money to cover expenses. He points to the demise of the antique shops in Old Milltown—which brought Edmonds Mercantile traffic—as a culprit. (In addition, he says the rent in Edmonds was due to rise 75 percent.)

The stores were forced out when developer Bob Gregg bought the property with renovation in mind. But the property was foreclosed in 2006 and bought back by Cascade Bank, which is now Opus Bank. The building is mostly vacant now—its biggest tenant, after only two years.

There aren’t many places left in Edmonds to shop for antiques. Rosa Mundi’s at 319 Main St. closed in 2008, but retained its second location in Woodinville. Mainly Antiques, at 519 Main St., is gone, but has been replaced by Homestyle Mercantile. The Times Square antique mall in the QFC Shopping Center closed a few years ago and is scheduled to on Dec. 1.

The Waterfront Antique Mall on Sunset Avenue by the ferry is still around, but its days are no doubt numbered as well.

O'Dell is realistic about the antique business in today's economy.

"We've got nothing anyone actually needs," he says.