The owner of The Book Store, Michelle Barron, trying to open by Black Friday and the Maplewood Christmas Tree Walk, has started a Kickstarter campaign to raise $10,000.
She said getting the old department store space, which hasn’t seen a tenant in almost 20 years, needs thousands of dollars of more work than she expected.
“I will take a partner. I will take a financier. We have tried St. Louis Development Council. We’ve tried the SBA. I’ve tried 10 banks,” she said on Wednesday.
Barron said it’s not that she can’t afford the build-out, but she can’t afford to pay it all at once in time for the holiday shopping season. She said if someone loaned her $50,000 she could pay it back in a year .
She’s working on getting the entire space up to code, but would be happy to get a “little sliver by the the front door open for Black Friday and the Christmas tree walk.”
She said she’d even just put a table outside the door if the city would let her.
“It’s like ridiculous,” she said. “If we can’t be open we can’t pay the contractors. I’m doing the very, very best I can, and these (contractors) are working their butts off doing the very best they can.”
Barron’s Kickstarter is seeking $10,000, and in less than a week has raised has a little more than $6,000. She has 24 days to go.
She’s also holding a fund-raiser at Schlafly Bottleworks called Locally Grown Literature: A Book House Fundraiser, this Friday. Tickets are $15, which includes two Schlafly beers. St. Louis authors have contributed books for a silent auction.