Delaware State News
DOVER — The days of gift stores in Delaware state museums are numbered, and that could be good news for Loockerman Street.
"We made a decision to get out of the retail business. It wasn’t profitable," said Timothy A. Slavin, director of the Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs. The division runs museums and historic sites from Claymont to Fenwick Island, as well as the Delaware Visitor Center and Galleries in Dover.
The visitor center’s gift store offers perhaps the widest selection of Delaware-themed books and collectibles available anywhere, but the store is to close as the next fiscal year begins in July. Its merchandise, though, may remain on sale.
Mr. Slavin said he favors offering the items to a couple of Loockerman Street businesses, Delaware Made General Store and Dover Newsstand, already dealing in similar products.
The move could send tourists eager for souvenirs toward the Loockerman Street business district. Although the stores of Loockerman Street are within a few blocks of the visitor center and Delaware’s capital complex, they are unknown to some visitors.
Robert and Vikki Raheem, for instance, were first-time tourists in Dover Saturday, taking a long route on a day trip from their home in Washington, D.C., to Rehoboth Beach. They had just seen the gift shop in the visitor center.
"I can understand why it’s here — it’s a central point" among Dover’s attractions, Mr. Raheem said.
But Loockerman Street? The Raheems said they had no clue they were close to stores and restaurants.
Diana Welch, owner of Dover Newsstand, has a solution to that situation. She favors painting directions on sidewalks to guide out-of-towners to tourist attractions — and to Loockerman Street.
Currently, she said, it is unclear how many tourists find their way to businesses like hers.
Regardless, she said, she is glad Mr. Slavin’s agency, which is trying like many others in state government to cut costs dramatically, is looking to Loockerman Street as a solution.
"They’re making a positive out of a negative," Ms. Welch said. "Tim Slavin’s trying hard to make something good happen."
Across Loockerman Street from Dover Newsstand, Delaware Made General Store owner Tom Smith said he would welcome visitor-center merchandise that would enhance his collection of First State products.
"They have a lot of interesting children’s items — Delaware coloring books, little stories about Delaware — that I don’t currently carry," he said. "Plus, they have a much larger selection of books than I have."
And the visitor-center store has a monopoly of sorts on a staple of Colonial-style events such as the annual Dover Days celebration — the tri-cornered hat.
"I’ll be sure to pick up that line," Mr. Smith said, adding jokingly, "We don’t want to have a tri-cornered hat crisis."
He said he has purposely avoided selling the hats, just to be community-spirited.
"I didn’t want to compete with" the visitor center, he said. Dover is "still a small town."
The store closing might not be the only change at the visitor center. Mr. Slavin said the center’s tourist-friendly services could be moved to the more-visible Delaware Public Archives building, where much more parking is available.
That move, in turn, could allow expansion within the visitor center of the Biggs Museum of American Art, which now is limited to the center’s upper floors. Negotiations with Biggs officials are under way, Mr. Slavin said.
Still to be determined are the future uses of the division’s buildings that now are home to the Delaware Archaeology Museum and the Museum of Small Town Life, both scheduled to close in July as part of Gov. Jack A. Markell’s efforts to head off a potentially enormous budget deficit.
Mr. Slavin said he would like to see a public meeting held to gather ideas on the future of the buildings, former church structures that sit side-by-side amid a cemetery in the 300 block of South Governors Avenue.
"We want to be respectful of the surroundings and the history and come up with a solution that suits everything," he said.
