A fixture of downtown for 114 years, San Diego Hardware has traded up its Fifth Avenue store for a roomier, more accessible location in Kearny Mesa. The family-owned operation survived two world wars, the Great Depression and downtown’s blighted era, only to be ushered out of its long-time home by trendy nightclubs, restaurants and shops. Despite the melancholy implications, both owners insist that the move signals a rebirth for the store, not its demise.
An explosion of development has revamped the Gaslamp Quarter and drawn thousands of residents out of their suburban enclaves for big-city entertainment. Despite record sales in 2005, the store had no room to grow and its customers nowhere to park. Co-owner Rip Fleming calls the move the ending of an era.
“[Downtown’s growth] makes our move bittersweet,” Fleming said of the boom that has benefited many. “We are really sad to be leaving the area.”
Nonetheless, Fleming and his partner, Bill Haynsworth, are excited about refitting the store for its new location and a new century. After occupying the same building for more 83 years “” San Diego Hardware opened at 658 Fifth Ave. before moving to 840 Fifth Ave. in 1923 “” the store’s expansion has been notably stunted by the location’s physical limitations.
“It’s a move that we feel will ensure our longevity for the next 114 years, and it’s a move based on the fact that the business has evolved from being a local hardware store that stocked 50,000 different items to a hardware store that caters to the homebuilding industry,” Haynsworth said.
San Diego Hardware’s selection is unparalleled. They offer more than 2,000 hinge varieties and 7,000 knobs. Fleming and Haynsworth began to shape the business around home hardware in 1999 by replacing common tools with hard-to-find door locks and drawer pulls. During the past year, nails, nuts and bolts have been sold off in preparation for the big move, which necessitated 23 movers, 15 semi-trucks and four days.
The bread and butter customers visit San Diego Hardware despite its location for a selection of decorative hardware they can’t find elsewhere. The focus on builder’s hardware caters the home remodeling or building industry. Homeowners, small contractors, interior designers and even architects are the people who make big purchases that keep San Diego Hardware thriving and are most inconvenienced by the lack of parking.
“Probably the most vocal group asking us to move are the interior designers and the contractors,” Fleming said. “They don’t want to have to walk six blocks to a parking lot “¦ carrying a 50-pound box of hinges.”
Three years ago, the owners began looking for a 14,000 square-foot space to meet their needs, namely the visibility, accessibility, centralized location and room to breathe offered by the 5710 Kearny Villa Road location. Haynsworth understands that some customers will be upset that the store is leaving its old digs for something new and different, but the business must adapt to the changes taking place around them.
“The customers that show up every five years looking for a hard-to-find widget, they tend to be a little disappointed because they like the nostalgia of the 114-year-old store in the same location,” Haynsworth said. San Diego Hardware will retain as much of their historical identity as possible by bringing scoop scales once used to weigh nails, old photos, vintage signs and the five-foot-tall Diebold safe dating back to 1893.
Both Fleming and Haynsworth are optimistic that new customers, in addition to the old, will take advantage of the prime Kearny Mesa location beginning March 1. The date is tentative because this is only the store’s second move in 114 years, said Fleming.
San Diego Hardware was founded by five men “” it was believed to be four until recent documents revealed a fifth person owning one share of stock “” on Dec. 8, 1892. Fred Gazlay, one of the five, bought out the others and retained sole ownership of the business until his death in the 1930s. At that time, Fred’s son, Wadham, took over and ran the store through the 1960s. Wadham’s nephew, Donald Haynsworth, who had joined as a partner, bought out his uncle around that time.
In 1983, Donald sold San Diego Hardware to his son, Bill, and Fleming. They retain joint ownership of the store today and are the architects behind the store’s move and transformation.
The company has sustained many changes during its downtown tenure. Well into the 20th century, the store sold typical household items, including kerosene lanterns, cast-iron skillets, nuts and bolts, tools and other necessities. Business was tough until World War II aircraft workers created a demand for tools.
In the 1950s, the flight out of downtown began to change the urban landscape and by the 1970s, influential companies and large department stores had been replaced by massage parlors and adult bookstores or not at all. Fleming was hired in 1973 and remembers the atmosphere as seedy and grim.
While a slow redevelopment effort gradually brought life back to downtown, San Diego Hardware was faced with the new challenge of competing with big-box super stores. When the first Home Depot opened in San Diego in 1983, many small hardware stores were forced to change or go out of business. San Diego Hardware responded by streamlining their inventory and offering more specialized services and products.
“It definitely hurt us, but it also made us focus on what we really wanted to do and that was to sell decorative and functional hardware for homes,” Fleming said. “Now the big-box stores actually help us because they send us customers.”
San Diego Hardware’s last day, Feb. 23, was celebrated with a ceremonial final sale of one pound of nails to Elizabeth Clark, 84. She had come forward with the oldest memory of shopping in the store, dating back to 1930.
“Some say if you can’t find it anywhere else, you go to San Diego Hardware,” Clark said. “Other people say, go to San Diego Hardware first and save yourself the trip.”