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The front window of Schoolkids Records has a sign announcing that it will move. Schoolkids is planning to move from its current location near Gumby's to another location near Buddha's Belly on Hillsborough Street for a smaller store size. Photo by David Mabe
Schoolkids Records is moving to 2114 Hillsborough Street Sunday in an effort to reduce overhead and increase traffic.
The store will close its present location alongside Kinkoís and Gumbyís on Hillsborough Street and reopen in what was formerly half of Buddha’s Belly on Monday.
Ric Culross, Schoolkid’s general manager since 1991, said the move is due to the lower rent at the new location and the increased visibility to both the traffic at the intersection it will face and students on foot.
“Our toes need to touch some form of student life itself,” he said.
Located on Hillsborough Street for 37 years, Schoolkids may be one of Raleigh’s last independent record stores.
The Chapel Hill location closed last year due to decreasing sales, which Culross said was due in part to the online streaming music service available to UNC-Chapel Hill students.
The National Association of Recording Merchandisers, an industry trade group, stated album sales decreased 14 percent in 2008, to 428 million, in a report on its Web site.
Eric Tschudi, a senior in communication who has worked at the store for three and a half years, said the shopping center where Schoolkids has been located for the past five years was not a good fit.
“This used to be a drug store, it never really had a great vibe to it,” he said. “I think the new location will have more character, it will feel more like a record store.”
Culross said the shopping center the store is moving to is already a “counter cultural area,” which is favorable for the store”s success. Having a pawn shop which specializes in musical instruments two doors down is also a plus, he said.
The new site, located directly across from the Bell Tower, should also make students more aware of the store’s presence, Tschudi said.
While students are now more likely to buy concert tickets and posters than compact discs at the store, high profile releases such as the recent Lil Wayne and Young Jeezy CDs are still in demand, Tschudi said.
“People know how to download music, but they still want to buy products,” Tschudi said.
Many younger music fans now download a copy of an album to listen to on their iPods and buy the vinyl LP to play at home, he said.
“A lot of people are moving towards that, which makes a lot of sense,” he said.
Culross said vinyl sales at the store increased 133 percent in 2008 and he would like for the store to focus more on vinyl in the future.
According to NARM’s website, vinyl sales set a SoundScan record in 2008 at 1.88 million units sold.
Mikey Perros, a senior in biology and a DJ at WKNC, said he thinks Schoolkids is vital for students interested in local music and said he’s glad it will remain on Hillsborough Street.
“It’s the only place in Raleigh where you can find local stuff,” he said. “I’ve been going to Schoolkids for half my life, ever since I started listening to music.”