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Watch for Moving Parts
By SHARON L. BOND ST. PETERSBURG -- The body parts have made the move and now reside at Puckett's Store Fixtures' warehouse. Some of them stand a chance of being reunited with the mannequin from whence they came. "The sign said "body parts,' and we have lots of them. But they belong to mannequins," said Lee Pitney, a friend of store owner Bill Puckett. She is helping him with the business during the move but is not an employee, she said. The sign Pitney mentioned is the marquee on the old movie theater at 3050 First Ave. S where Puckett's has had its sales room since 1991. Often the marquee mentioned the availability of body parts within. Puckett's stocks nearly any type of fixture from department stores that are cleaning out a location. Thus, the 300 to 350 mannequins. Puckett's has moved from the First Avenue S location to its warehouse at 2450 Fifth Ave. S to make way for Hospice of Florida Suncoast. Hospice, which cares for people who are terminally and chronically ill, bought the Puckett's site. It will tear down the old theater and erect a building that will house its south Pinellas teams and volunteers and offer the community a resource center, said Louise Cleary, director of public relations and marketing for Hospice. The new building will be a $4-million to $5-million project when it is completed, Cleary said. Site preparation will begin early next year. The Hospice building will be the third new addition to Central Plaza, which used to be one of the city's main shopping areas. The Jim and Heather Gills YMCA of St. Petersburg, an $11-million project, opened recently and a new terminal for the Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority is under construction nearby. Meanwhile, Puckett's is moving its large inventory of stuff, as Bill Puckett calls it, to the warehouse where the company will build a showroom and have items better organized. The warehouse property is the old Hughes Supply Co. Puckett has been in the resale business since 1975. He also sells real estate. "We should be fully operational here by the first of the year," Puckett said of the new location. Sales continue in the interim. "If somebody walks in with $3, we can do business." "We have such room," Pitney said. "It will be a lot nicer than the theater." But the business will miss the exposure it got on First Avenue S, a major traffic artery, she said. All sorts of shelving and display cases are stacked around the warehouse, in what will be the showroom. Some are decorative, such as the shelving in the shape of a train, to hold children's items. Also on hand recently were boxes of children's toys, such as blocks and bunnies. Puckett's often has file cabinets and other office furnishings. That stock is low now, Pitney said. Seats from the theater are there, as are several large safes, the size businesses would use, Pitney said. The mannequins have their own space and stand in three long lines. In the theater, they were perched all around, some up high, and it was difficult for prospective buyers to see them up close, Pitney said. Surrounding the mannequins in their new space are those body parts: one giant box of torsos, another of arms. "Mannequins have kind of phased out," said Puckett, 65, whose son Bret also works in the business. He points out they aren't seen very often any more in department stores or if they are, they are not as realistic as the posed hundreds of women molded-plastic models he has. Only four are men. Most stand naked, and the women all are cover-girl skinny. The ones that have been cleaned are wrapped in plastic. Some of the mannequins wear wigs and makeup. The most expensive ones have eyes whose position can be changed by turning a knob inside the head, one knob per eye. Sales prices range from $100 to $500 or more. Pitney said the mannequins had to be moved with great care over an entire weekend. They were gently loaded and then driven to the new spot at about 2 mph on side streets, she said. Puckett described it differently. "It was just like dancing, only you lead," he said of picking up each mannequin. "They never complain." Puckett used to have 600 to 700 mannequins but gradually has sold about half of them. Sales come in waves, and recently he sold about 10. He never asks individuals what they plan to do with the human-size doll they buy. "You just give me the money," he says of the mannequin sale. "And you dance."
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From the Times South Pinellas desks |
