Another example of why local culture plans need to include an element on retail/dealing with for profit elements of the cultural ecosystem: Nashville's Tubb Record Shop
In August 2020, Jesse Lee Jones, the owner of Robert's Western World (located directly across the street from Ernest Tubb's), bought the building and the record shop business from his long-time friend David McCormick for $4.75 million. This purchase allowed him to control two significant pieces of real estate that, as he noted in 2020, "protect, promote and preserve [the] great history [of traditional country music]."... The recent real estate boom has made significant news and waves in Music City and has been seismic on Broadway. For example, just three blocks away from Ernest Tubb's[,] country star John Rich sold and his investment partners sold the "Cotton Eyed Joe's" property at 200 Broadway to an undisclosed buyer for $24.5 million in 2021 -- a 32% profit after Rich and Atlanta-based The Ardent Cos. bought the building in 2019 for $18.5 million.
... "Preserving the history and tradition of country music remains at the forefront of everything we do," continues the Facebook statement by Honky Tonk Circus, ETRS, and David McCormick Company. "We remain committed to preservation work and look forward to new projects that will allow us to continue to protect and nurture the invaluable history and tradition of country music."
It could be that people will join together, buy the building, and enable the business to stay in operation.
That's what happened with the Drama Book Shop in New York City.
Focusing on the theater field, a large part of the store's revenue came from the sales of playscripts, and it was a significant resource for writers.
After the announcement of its closure, a number of playwrights came together including Lin-Manuel Miranda, to buy the store to keep it in operation ("Drama Book Shop Sets a Fresh Start in a New Locale," New York Times).
We don't think about it so much, especially planners, but record stores, music instrument stores, practice facilities, bookstores, music score stores (there used to be one in Silver Spring, Maryland), art supply stores, and of course for profit concert facilities, ranging in size from bars to much larger facilities, etc. are part of the cultural-arts ecosystem, but because they are for profit, their place in the arts ecosystem is usually ignored in culture master planning.
And just as I argue that there needs to be facilities planning by discipline, and scenario planning and a response system developed for when arts institutions are threatened with closure, the same goes for arts-related retail.
This is just another example. Probably, to come up with the amount of money the owners want, philanthropy would have to step in, because the business case for the record store doesn't justify the asking price for the building.
-- "Cultural plans should have an element on culture-related retail," 2018
-- "Newsstands closing in San Diego and Seattle: revisiting cultural retail planning for books and periodicals," 2019
Although Nashville is full of people in the profession who have the means and connections to save the Tubb Record Shop.
But it would be a lot easier if cultural master planning prepared communities for such action. Paris' SEMAEST community development corporation's retail preservation initiative is the world's best practice example of how to do this in terms of both buildings and businesses:
-- "The SEMAEST Vital Quartier program remains the best model for helping independent retail," 2018
Note that Nashville already has the music cultural heritage preservation issue wrt music studios:
-- "Leveraging music as cultural heritage for economic development: part two, popular music," 2017
Labels: arts-based revitalization, commercial district revitalization planning, community economic development, cultural planning, economic development, music-entertainment, retail planning
posted by Richard Layman @ 6:52 PM&Permanent Link
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For 40 years, this guitar shop has been a magnet for musicians
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2025/02/09/for-40-years-this-guitar-shop-has-been-a-magnet-for-musicians
In the grand scheme of things, Mark’s Guitar Exchange specializes in one thing: guitar stuff.
But in the guitar scheme of things, this shop, with one location in Point Loma and one in Chula Vista, specializes in many: sales, purchases, lessons, repairs, maintenance, custom builds, advice for first-time buyers and for people investing in their instrument collection.
On a recent weekday afternoon the Point Loma shop, on Midway Drive, was several of those, all at the same time. In a corner, two men were testing a pair of guitars. In another corner, a returning customer was testing a guitar by a maker she likes, Martin. And in the middle of the shop, a man was retrieving a decades-old guitar he brought in for maintenance.
The shop is stuffed with guitars, floor to ceiling. Cases hold equipment and 64 styles of guitar picks. It is an organized, thoughtful kind of stuffed. Stepping inside feels very different from wandering through the sections of a big-box music store or clicking through pages of an online retailer. It’s dense, tactile. Within an arm’s reach you can pick up a guitar for around $170 and one for $1,200. (The shop asks customers to ask an employee to retrieve guitars and not help themselves. “Help Keep Our Guitars New,” one sign says.)
Close connections with guitar companies is one way the store has worked to be different from others. The shop stocks deep into the product lines of Martin Guitars, Fender Guitars and Gibson and lets customers order custom builds, he said. It is also selective about which products it sells, he added.
One challenge is competing with the internet sellers. “We’re primarily a brick and mortar business, and every year, everything is tending to go more and more online,” he said. The company is upping its internet presence, he added, with an upgraded website that now shows live inventory.
Indie music venues drive $2.8B to Chicago's economy, new report finds
https://www.chicagobusiness.com/arts-entertainment/indie-music-venues-drive-28b-chicagos-economy-report
1/22/26
Most of Chicago’s roughly 150 independent music venues are in financial peril despite producing a combined $2.8 billion economic impact and supporting almost 17,000 jobs in the city, according to a new report from the Chicago Independent Venue League and Choose Chicago.
The State of Live report — based on a survey of the city's smaller independent music venues — found that just 22% of such concert halls were able to turn a profit in 2024, an indicator that many of them could be forced to shutter, said CIVL co-chair Jimalita Tillman.
The study didn’t include corporate or nationally owned music venues such as House of Blues, the United Center, Allstate Arena or any venue operated by Live Nation, Tillman said, but focused on independent concert halls such as Empty Bottle, Schubas Tavern, Thalia Hall, and The Hideout.
The study also didn’t include indie music venues in the Chicago suburbs or anywhere not in Chicago proper, a spokesperson for CIVL said. The spokesperson estimated there are likely 300-350 such venues statewide, meaning the report likely underestimates the total economic impact of the sector in Illinois.
Still, the report found those Chicago venues analyzed contributed $1.8 billion to Illinois’ gross domestic product, paid almost $185 million in state and local taxes, directly employed 6,678 workers with $1.1 billion in wages and benefits, and generated $383.7 million in 2024 for off-site spending such as hotel room bookings.
"Independent venues are the backbone of Chicago’s music ecosystem," Metro Owner Joe Shanahan said in the release. "They are where artists grow, scenes collide and culture is built from the ground up."
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https://desotostate.prezly.com/chicagos-independent-music-venues-contribute-28-billion-to-local-economy-new-report-finds
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