Gastonia couple closes longtime antique mall to make way for development

GASTONIA, N.C. — After nearly 30 years in business, a Gastonia couple shut down their antique mall to make room for one of the largest proposed developments ever built in the city.

The B&B Antique and Artisan Mall is along West Franklin Boulevard, between Archie Whitesides Road and South Myrtle School Road -- right in front of where that development is set to go.

Gaston County reporter Ken Lemon spoke with the business owners as they made their last sales.

“It’s kind of sad,” said owner Teresa Barrett.

Barrett and her husband rang up sales for 28 years, but it stopped being about business years ago.

“You meet a lot of nice customers, but you [have] grown more friends,” she said.

“We are going to miss B&B,” a shopper told Lemon.

Barrett and her husband have seen a lot there. They first opened as a furniture store, but when the economy went down in 2007, they closed up for three months and reopened as an antiques mall.

Then, two months ago, the developer of Crowder Creek Holdings got approval from the city for a planned 850 new homes and shops in the woods behind B&B.

The Barretts asked the developer why stop at the back door.

“We’re ready to retire,” Teresa Barrett said.

So they sold their lot to make way for new retail businesses.

It’s happening too fast for customers like Jerry Hardin.

“I hate to see it happen,” Hardin said.

He said he has shopped there for 10 years.

“I heard they were closing, and I had to come support them one last time,” he said.

He made his last purchase Wednesday afternoon.

Barrett and her husband will close the register, but they still have weeks of work left to do.

“It will be probably be the first of the year before I finally do get to relax,” she said.

Then, they plan to ride off into retirement.

Plans for the new development aren’t sitting well with everyone. The business next to the B&B antique mall plans to fight it. Siblings who live near the planned entrance say the road goes between their homes, and the development will cause flooding.

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