Edgartown Hardware, a retail anchor of the downtown Edgartown business district for more than six decades, won a special permit from the zoning board of appeals (ZBA) last week to move to the former Old Colony car dealership building on Edgartown-West Tisbury Road.
“That’s something we’ve looked at for a while now,” store owner John Montes said in a phone conversation with The Times. “It was not an easy decision. We’ve been here for 64 years. Moving out of town was not anything we took lightly.”
Mr. Montes, who has owned the store for the past 10 years, said the move was prompted because the store needs room to expand, and needs more parking for customers and employees.
“We got to a point where we are locked in, we can’t grow,” Mr. Montes said. “We’ve rearranged as much as we can rearrange, we’ve got nowhere else to go.”
He said he plans to completely rehab the dilapidated car dealership building. The exterior will be painted gray. Mr. Montes expects to move the store in December or January.
Conditions of the special permit include low intensity lighting, one-way traffic for the entrance and exit to the parking lot, hours of operation no later than 6 pm, and no outside storage or display of merchandise.
Six neighbors to the new location spoke in favor of the move, at the public hearing. Attorney Sean Murphy, representing the hardware store, presented a petition with more than 300 signatures in support, according to records of the public hearing on July 21. No one at the hearing spoke in opposition. Several board members expressed regret at the loss of the familiar business from downtown, but the ZBA voted unanimously to grant the special permit with the conditions.
