04/05/2018
by Tina Manzer
Buffalo, New York-based Hyatt’s All Things Creative will move its flagship art materials store to a new 40,000-square-foot building by the end of the year, reports The Buffalo News. Founded in 1959, Hyatt’s has resided on Main Street in Buffalo’s Allentown Arts District since 1961.
At a time when retail stores across the country are consolidating or closing, Hyatt’s is experiencing growing pains. Its retail sales floor will double to 13,000 square feet when construction is completed on the new building in North Buffalo.
Hyatt’s believes it is the largest art materials retailer between New York City and Chicago, including its location in nearby Clarence, New York, said the article. In the last several years, it has experienced a “sizable surge” in its online business; “much of it reaching overseas to Europe.”
“Our current building is very complex, with three stories, a basement and a mezzanine,” Beth Hyatt-Martin, director of marketing & public relations, told The Buffalo News. “It’s hard to make it work because it’s on so many levels.”
According to fliers distributed at the store, its “dream home,” will feature covered outdoor seating and an event area, and two interior classrooms with access to the store and outside. In addition, it will offer expanded office and warehouse space and at least 80 parking spots.
Allentown, the first neighborhood north of the Downtown Buffalo core, is known for its community of artists and its embrace of bohemian, hipster and gay culture. It has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1980. Its residents, committed to the neighborhood’s historic and aesthetic sensibilities, will miss their art store even though the new location is just four miles away.
The Main Street building is owned by several members of the Hyatt family.
The company is owned by Gregory C. Hyatt and Peter W. Hyatt. Greg, a former president of the International Art Materials Association, was inducted into the organization’s Hall of Fame in 2000. The business was begun by his father Charles. Beth Hyatt-Martin and her sister Sara Hyatt, director of operations, represent the third generation of workers in the family business.
