Updated 10:45 a.m. 12/23 to include auction location

By ANDY GARDNER

MASSENA -- The inventory at Memory Lane will be auctioned next month.

The store, which operated in the St. Lawrence Centre Mall and included consigners and vendors, closed Oct. 13, according to owner Peggy Cruz.

There will be two on-site auctions. On Jan. 11 they will sell off most of the for-sale inventory. Jan. 18 will include the store’s displays, furniture and wholesale box lots, according to a statement from River Rock Auction Company.

Cruz said the store went under because of a lack of customer support and high rent.

“It was a lack of customer support because there was nothing for them to come [to the mall] for,” she said. “Talk to people - they go to Watertown, to Plattsburgh, they shop online.

“You struggle, year after year.”

She blamed mall management for not working with her to come up with a rent rate equitable with her sales, which she said dropped by 30 percent starting in January 2013 and continued to plummet.

“The profit was pretty much gone. It went to the mall,” she said.

Cruz noted that the 2013 Christmas season brought much-needed cash to her coffers, as did renting tuxedos during the summer.

“There were some days were I did $10 [in sales],” she said.

Memory Lane is not the only store to leave the St. Lawrence Centre. FYE music store and Sears are closing in January.

About half of the mall’s storefronts are empty.

The mall recently appealed its assessment with the Town of Massena, arguing for a reduction in light of dwindling business.

The town agreed to drop their assessment by 40 percent, from $5,458,750 to $3,275,250.