The Greenroom and Tricolour Market will swap locations this summer primarily because Tricolour Market needs to move to a more central location so it wouldn’t lose so much money, said Ian Black, AMS V-P (operations).
“Tricolour was something we’d never done before, so giving it that high exposure … it will become more integrated in student life,” he said. “The Greenroom doesn’t need to benefit from that high-traffic area … people will still go there because they know it’s stuff they need.”
This past year, the Greenroom posted a loss of $59,939, and the Tricolour Market posted a loss of $101,924.
Sinead Dreery, Tricolour Market Head Manager, said the main reason for the switch is to move the Tricolour Market into a more central location because the gift items the store sells require more walk-in browsers. “We’re finding it a bit restricting down here to display clothing or gifts a lot more effectively,” she said. “Being a gift shop, we’re not necessarily a place you’d seek.
“Upstairs gives us a lot of opportunities, space-wise … I can see that being in a high-traffic area will help.”
Greenroom manager Naomi Lutes said she hopes the move will be for the best.
“If we didn’t move the Tricolour Market they would continue to lose money, so I think they had to move,” she said.
Lutes said the Greenroom will be changing its retail focus towards used books while continuing to sell courseware and student-made jewellery and accessories.
“We’re going to be concentrating more on used books. We can increase those revenues to offset any loss experienced by being in a less central location,” she said. “We’re going to have to really respond to the challenge of less walk-by traffic … with a lot of marketing.”
Jack Gregory, chair of the AMS board of directors, said the Tricolour Market, then the College Book Merchant, was originally purchased to ensure retail space for the AMS in the Queen’s Centre.
“Certain spaces in the Queen’s Centre match up with spaces in the JDUC,” he said. “We need to prove that the services can be successful so that they can be maintained in the Queen’s Centre.”
Bill York, AMS student services director, said he’s confident the price to move the services won’t exceed the $20,000 approved by the Board of Directors to be spent on it.
The two stores will be closed for two weeks while the move is taking place, which will probably be in late July.
—With files Brendan Kennedy and Anna Mehler Paperny
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