Artists' gem Pearl closing on Market Street

Alejandro Martínez-Cabrera, Chronicle Staff Writer

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

It might be this week or next, but one thing is for sure: The San Francisco branch of art supplies discount store Pearl Paint Co. is closing by Feb. 14


The troubled 77-year-old art supplies chain is closing the 969 Market St. store, which has been open since the mid-1990s, along with seven other stores across the country, general manager Joni Mari Theodorsen said.
With the move, Pearl Paint will bring the total number of its physical stores from 16 to eight, most of them located in the East Coast, she said.

Pearl Paint is one of many businesses slammed by the recession, consumers' cutting nonessential expenses and fierce competition from big-box retailers and the Internet, said IBISWorld retail senior analyst Toon van Beeck.

Pearl Paint "has specialized tools and greater variety, but with the Internet you can order anything you want and get it delivered to your door. (The Internet) has taken specialty shops out of their realm, and they cannot compete as seriously or strongly," he said.

Industry's hard times
Van Beeck said the art supplies industry has not done particularly well in recent years and retailers have been forced to scale back their operations to minimize the damage caused by declining sales.

James Dufresne, an assistant manager who has worked at the Market Street store for four years, said the shop had been hurting for some time but its woes were only accentuated by the surrounding area's declining business.

"The neighborhood definitely hurt our business," said Dufresne, who learned the store was going out of business about three weeks ago. "When you only have three stores open on the block, it takes away foot traffic. A lot of the complaints we have on Yelp are about the rough neighborhood."

But the block's afflictions have not deterred Blick Art Materials, a leader in the art supplies mailing business, from planning on opening a store this summer two doors down from Pearl Paint's location.

About 15 employees - many of them artists and students - will lose their jobs when Pearl closes, Theodorsen said.

Even though the store didn't invest much in advertising, she said the store tried to draw traffic from the mall area in Market Street with community outreach programs like the Art in Storefronts October event done in collaboration with the San Francisco Arts Commission. It also planned on hosting a community gallery soon inside the store displaying works from both employees and customers.

"It's hard to see it all go," said Theodorsen, who has worked the past four years of a 10-year career with Pearl Paint in the San Francisco location.

Taking bargains home
On Friday evening, the 75 percent discount signs attracted modest traffic in the store. Merchandise on the shelves was thinning, but shoppers could still find some good deals.

Timon Covelli, a 19-year-old architecture student, found a mobile parallel bar for his desk that originally cost $165. John Hogan, an artist and a teacher at the Art Institute of California in San Francisco, bought a wall projector for less than $40.

Meanwhile, Carol Sachs, a 45-year-old hobby artist from Berkeley, filled a shopping basket with stickers, beads, cattle figurines and mosaic tile.

"I like the store. It's fun to browse through, and it's not too corporate-slick. I'm sad it's closing - one less independent art store," she said.

E-mail Alejandro Martínez-Cabrera at amartinez-cabrera@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page D - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle