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A downtown Detroit clothing institution in business for more than 40 years will shut its doors after selling its building to Dan Gilbert's real estate company.
Pepper Martin, owner of high-end retailer, The Broadway, tells Deadline Detroit he'll close by February at the request of Bedrock, which has "other plans for the building." A liquidation sale started Monday, according to a news release. Martin says he plans to retire.
The store at the corner of Gratiot and Broadway opened in 1975 after Martin, then in his early 20s, and a partner, Donny Goldstein, invested "their life savings" in the building. They called it Donny’s Funky Broadway and trafficked in polyester suits.
"When we opened it was the era of Superfly," said Martin. "But by 1985 we had outgrown 'funky.' We threw that out the window and went to beautiful European-style clothing."
It took a little while for the store to turn a profit. As Martin tells it, the two could only afford to buy a rack's worth of jeans after covering the down payment on the builidng. But several years later, around Christmas time, they had paid off their debt and were buying enough inventory to fill the shop.
"We looked at each other and we said, 'We’ve got a store,'" Martin recalled. "That was kind of the start to a real springboard effect in our business."
Over the years, the store sold Gianni Versace suits, alligator boots, and other high-end garb to Detroiters who could afford it — whether they were politicos or drug dealers. In 1990, Demetrius Holloway, a notorious Detroit drug kingpin, was shot and killed inside the store in what Martin calls "one of the darker days of our existence."
"We're Detroit," he said. "So whatever Detroit was, the Broadway was."
Now, with the rebirth of downtown, Martin says he's happy for what the area has become.
"Downtown has changed dramatically in the past 10 years," he says. "Before bankruptcy, we went through a period where some downtown street lights didn’t even work and you couldn't leave the store after dark.
"But what a difference today. Everything's lit up; there’s people crowding the streets every night. I think the future for Detroit is ridiculously exciting. I just wish I was 20 and not 70."
For now, Martin has a busy couple months to look forward to before retirement. The Broadway has nearly $1 million in inventory remaining. Everything will be at least 30% off during its liquidation sale, including $650 suits.
