Obelisk Shoppe Brett Serwalt wins auction

Por Ashley Mackin | Editor SDUN

The 1984 Hillcrest sign was sold to Brett Serwalt of the Obelisk Shoppe after a three-day auction. From Jan. 30 at 10 a.m. to Feb. 1 at 5 p.m., community members and business owners could bid on the sign. After 19 bids, Serwalt was the winner.

“We were on the edge of our seats watching the bids come in during [the] final minutes of the auction,” said Lisa Weir, marketing and communications director of the Hillcrest Business Association (HBA). The HBA put the sign up for auction.

Weir explained the proceeds from the sale of the sign go towards numerous? projects in the Hillcrest business district including new trees, trash cans?and lights along Fifth Avenue.

“We are happy to announce that a fair process was created for ownership of the 1984 Hillcrest sign and that the sign has found it’s home with Brett [Serwalt] of Obelisk. The funds raised from the procurement of the 1984 Hillcrest sign will go right back into the business district and the sign will be available for public view once Brett’s store has re-opened,” she said.

The Obelisk Shoppe, located at 1029 University Ave. in Hillcrest, temporarily closed after a fire destroyed the space that housed Obelisk, along with several other businesses and apartments, on July 6, 2011.

Serwalt said he looks forward to having the sign in his new store. He explained it was during the store’s redesign that acquiring the sign came to mind.

“I really wanted to do something special and unique, since it’s an urban boutique,” he said. “When the sign idea came along, I thought this would be absolutely perfect because it would be in a 1,500-square-foot store and an item that size would be very dramatic,” he said.

The sign is 25 feet long and weighs 800 pounds.

Serwalt, whose winning bid was $5,200, said he was motivated to bid as much and as often as he did because of his objection to plans for the sign from other bidders.

Two of these bidders, Darin Erb of Winn’s Barbershop and Chris Shaw of Urban Mo’s Bar and Grill, jointly bid on the sign. Previously, both Erb and Shaw said the sign would be split in half, separating the front from the back so each business could display a sign that reads ‘Hillcrest’ if they were to win the auction. Erb said half would go in front of Winn’s Barbershop, and the other half would go in front of Shaw’s new restaurant.

Serwalt said, “[That] motivated me to spend more than I wanted to, to make sure the sign was not split in half or put into a nightclub.” Nick Moede of Rich’s Nightclub was also bidding on the sign, as was Cecelia Moreno of Crest Café.

“These are all businesses I support,” Serwalt said. “I think these businesses owners are really cool people, [but] I thought the idea of cutting it in half [was] a horrible idea.” He also said he thought there should have been some stipulations put in place by the HBA to prevent alterations, such as cutting it in half, “unless you are going to restore it, with its original color of paint and color neon and the same dimensions,” he said.

In the end, Serwalt said, any potential stipulations don’t matter since he won the auction.

He explained his strategy for winning the auction came down to the last few minutes. “In the last five minutes, everyone stopped bidding, and it was at $4,950,” he said. The minimum increment to add to a bid was $50.

“I thought all the others would bid it up to $5,000 and they [were] all going to click at the last second and it would come down to whoever’s click registers last,” he said. “So I waited until there was 15 or 20 seconds left in the auction and I bid $5,200 thinking if everybody bids $50 increments I’ll trump them and by the time they saw my bid they wouldn’t have time to place another bid and that’s exactly what happened.”

Serwalt said, “I’m really pleased that Obelisk is going to be the new caretaker for the sign and I think it will be awesome, not only to have this really amazing showpiece to put into our store, but also because Obelisk has this historical connection to the community that it has been serving for [almost] 20 years now.”