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Antique mall was new concept for Florida

A trip to Nashville inspired Patty & Friends, which opened in 1981. "We were all going by the seat of our pants," the first owner says.

By SCOTT TAYLOR HARTZELL
Published June 22, 2005

ST. PETERSBURG - After touring Tennessee in 1980, Patt Kennedy McBane returned home to revolutionize the local and state antique business.

"We were in Nashville and browsed through its Antique Merchants' Mall," McBane said. "We returned to St. Petersburg enthused about turning a second old house we had ... into a mall concept," where numerous dealers merge to draw customers to one location.

In 1981, McBane opened Florida's first antique mall: Patty & Friends at 1241 Ninth St. (now Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Street). Business thrived; expansion came in 1984. "I believe the success of Patty & Friends had to do a great deal with timing and good dealers," McBane said.

Nearly a quarter of a century later, Patty's is a veteran of paucity and prosperity. Despite its economic peaks and valleys, the mall has quadrupled its family of dealers and fostered numerous imitators.

"We caused a new wave of dealers combining shops," said Patty's owner as of January 2005, Andrea Le Grant, with the mall since 1981. "It's neat being the first one."

In 1980 when McBane explored that Nashville mall - one of 36 in Tennessee - she met owner Sylvia Reed, who loaded her with ideas. "Why can't I do that in St. Petersburg?" McBane said.

Back home, McBane reached area dealers through an ad in The Antique Press. "This (mall) is going to be the first of its kind here," McBane said.

With her sons and her former husband, Byron Kennedy, McBane prepared the house for business. They leveled an attached garage with sledgehammers and repaired the home's interior.

"We couldn't afford to paint the outside, so we just let it go with peeling paint," McBane, 67, said from her home in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. "There were 11 dealers when I opened (Nov. 1, 1981), none experienced. We were all going by the seat of our pants."

Depending on the size of their space, dealers paid $40 to $75 a month. McBane supervised the space, collected a 10 percent commission on sales, and paid for advertising and taxes.

After Patty's opened, malls leapfrogged across the state. "Antique dealers, faced with increasing overhead expenses and long hours involved in running a shop, are turning toward antique malls," the Tampa Tribune wrote. "The oldest and best known ... is Patty & Friends."

About 1984, McBane bought two two-story buildings beside her mall from Boley Manor. Renovations exceeded $35,000 and increased the mall area to 9,200 square feet. Business boomed. McBane issued warning tickets to dealers who deprived customers of parking space.

The sandy parking lot, covered with mulch, became a quagmire after rain. Dealers freed the cars whose tires had been swallowed up by the mire. "When the parking lot was paved (1987), that was the happiest day of my life," said one of McBane's four sons, Blake Kennedy, 39, a certified estate specialist and licensed auctioneer.

In 1986 on Le Grant's 36th birthday, McBane planted a 6-foot oak tree at the mall. It has been the Andrea Le Grant Tree ever since, and today it towers 30 feet above Patty's. "It is ironic that Andrea should now take over the business," McBane said.

Richard Bliss, 66, who joined Patty's about 1984, said dealers from other antique malls in the mid 1980s were 90 percent of his sales. When eBay surfaced, however, transactions slowed.

"eBay hurt us," said Kennedy, who purchased the mall about 1996, "but people like to touch and feel the stuff, and business improved. You're always going to find your past at Patty's," the oldest of eight antique malls in St. Petersburg.

"We are a small community that is part of the larger community of St Petersburg," said Adele Gilmore, a Patty's dealer for 14 years.

Bliss said Sept. 11, 2001, crippled sales. "The attack put people in the fear mode," he said. "But I see them coming back to Patty's," where 40 dealers now pay a $55 to $300 monthly management fee.

"We can't change the economy, but we can make the mall like it was before," Le Grant said.

Contact Scott Taylor Hartzell at hartzel@msn.com

[Last modified June 22, 2005, 01:08:17]