Ice cream extinction

Jiffy Treet. White Mountain Ice Creamery. Ben & Jerry’s. Maggie Moo’s. Cold Stone Creamery. Ritter’s Frozen Custard. In 2001, all of these were ice cream stores near IU’s campus. By 2006, most were extinct or had moved away from downtown.

Until last week, many feared that the Chocolate Moose, 401 S. Walnut St., could suffer the same fate. While the Moose has been spared, high rent downtown and parking issues have plagued ice cream stores trying to survive long winter months.

Some, including Cold Stone Creamery and Jiffy Treet, have moved into the College Mall or other areas, while others, including White Mountain Ice Creamery and Ben & Jerry’s, have been gone for years.

Cold Stone co-owner Tom Turner said they chose to move the Kirkwood store to Columbus, Ind. in 2007. The Kirkwood store was too close to the Cold Stone near College Mall, where it remains today, he said. In addition, the owners of The Pita Pit were seeking that location, Turner said.

“We said, ‘We’re beating ourselves up here when we could move somewhere else,’” Turner said of the Kirkwood store, adding that student traffic decreases noticeably in the summer, the peak business time for ice cream shops. “There was no parking and it was seasonal for us.”

Former White Mountain owner Douglas Petersen owned his business for 24 years before closing its doors in 2006. He said the single biggest reason his business went under was 2000’s “Big Dig” on Kirkwood Avenue and Dunn Street, which blocked vehicle traffic and made foot traffic more difficult.

From April to November 2000 – the heart of ice cream shops’ busy season – Bloomington’s Utilities Department fixed an underground water system to reduce sewer overflow that had flooded local businesses, Deputy Director John Langley said.

Langley pointed out that many other businesses, such as Greetings, Nick’s English Hut and Bloomington Bagel Company, are still in the Kirkwood area. Langley described the Dig as a successful project that was inconvenient but necessary in the long run.

Petersen said the entire ice cream business in the area went downhill as a result.
“It was the change in atmosphere and the business climate,” Petersen said. “It took years to come back from that.”

Yet White Mountain remained open six years after the Big Dig, which Petersen attributes to being stubborn. He said he invested tens of thousands of dollars of his own money to keep White Mountain open until the spring of 2006.

“I kept thinking, ‘It’s going to turn around, it’s going to get better,’” Petersen said. “We’d been at this for a quarter-century and we were just plain tired.”

Petersen said that while dramatic and certainly contributory, the Dig was not the only reason his store closed. He said the area was recovering from the Dig by 2006, and described White Mountain as a place people stopped by because they happened to be in the area, not a place people specifically went to.

Petersen said before he opened White Mountain, there were always at least three or four ice cream shops within a block of his location at 107 N. Dunn St. By the end of 2006, he said, they had almost disappeared in the area.

Jiffy Treet owner Hartzell Martel said the Big Dig certainly didn’t help business in the Kirkwood area.

Martel said it was a matter of real estate – the building they were in was bought by developers, demolished and built over. When offered space in the new building, he decided the space was more than needed. Rent downtown is considerably higher per square foot than in other Bloomington areas, Martel said. Martel estimated the Kirkwood property at $30 per square foot.

“Anywhere outside that area, you’re getting $14 to $24 per square foot,” he said.
Cold Stone’s Turner agreed, but pointed out that IU itself affects the cost of real estate.

“If you go within a mile of that college, you’re paying by the square foot,” he said.

When Martel’s Jiffy Treet closed, he took over the one now at 223 S. Pete Ellis Drive, across Third Street from the mall. But he said if the right space becomes available, he would love to return to a downtown location, describing an energy particular to the area – an energy he worries might disappear if local businesses continue to disappear.

“Kirkwood’s getting too commercialized,” Martel said. “It loses the soul of the city. I think the city should ask, ‘Why do I go downtown?’”