Little Mahatma’s move from 639 Main St. to 1205 Vine St. in Over-the-Rhine is official, and they’re bringing two new friends with them:

Mahatma jeweler moving to Over-the-Rhine
Business Courier of Cincinnati – by Lisa Biank Fasig Staff Reporter

Little Mahatma, the downtown jeweler that for almost 20 years featured one-of-a-kind designs hand-picked from around the world, is moving for the second time in so many years, to the expanding Gateway Quarter on Vine Street in Over-the-Rhine.

The shop, recently renamed from Mahatma, will move to 1205 Vine from 639 Main St. in September. Heading the transition will be its new owner – also its founder and former owner – Gloria McConnaghy, who bought the shop back in the spring.

The 1,000-square-foot jewelry shop will be joined by a pair of other tenants on Vine, just north of 12th Street: Switch, a lighting shop; and Incredible Creations, a barbershop and hair salon. The trio will be located between Mica, the modern gift and housewares store, and Lavomatic Café.

“I realized that specialty retail does better when it’s coupled with others,” McConnaghy said. “Even though we’ve been in business many years now, we feel very isolated. People have to work to find us and it’s not on its way to anything else.”

Mahatma moved to its space on Main Street, next to the Aronoff Center for the Arts, in April 2007. Prior to that it had operated since 1989 in a tiny, 108-square-foot space at the Carew Tower. Crow Grando, who purchased Mahatma from McConnaghy more than seven years ago, had operated the shop during its move to Main Street.

Next to Mahatma will be Switch. Operated by Drew Dearwester and Bertie Ray III, the 1,000-square-foot store will feature modern lighting not just from Europe, but from Brazil, Argentina, Australia and Japan, Dearwester said.

“We’re trying to make it more like a lighting gallery,” he said. “I’m kind of trying to find innovative, fresh new lighting talent out of different countries.”

Lastly, Incredible Creations will be operated by Devan Johnson, a barber for the Cincinnati Bengals, and his wife, Kim Johnson, according to Kathleen Norris, who is the commercial saleswoman for the Gateway Quarter.

Mahatma, Switch and Incredible Creations will all be part of the 26-unit Duncanson Lofts, Norris said. Twenty of those condominiums are now occupied.

“We expect everybody to be open by the Downtown Tour of Living on Sept. 27,” Norris said. “We’ll have that part of the block on its way and then we’ll start working on 13th Street.”

Among those celebrating the opening will likely by Jim Moll, a residential real estate broker. Moll is a longtime friend of McConnaghy and is the one who told her months ago to consider moving to Vine Street. “All the stars aligned,” he said. “The universe and the stars got happy and we had a Kumbaya moment and we got Mahatma up where it belongs.”

For McConnaghy, it was a matter of sustaining the store she founded 19 years ago. “I just felt for the health and longevity of the business that’s where we needed to be,” she said. “It’s a cool place, also.”

This entry was posted on Monday, July 28th, 2008 at 8:32 pm and is filed under Downtown retail, Over-the-Rhine news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.