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Future Bedford Avenue Salvation Army 'Not Your Mother's Thrift Store'

By Meredith Hoffman | February 4, 2013 9:08am

WILLIAMSBURG — It might sell your mother's old clothes, but this is will not be "your mother's thrift store."

Salvation Army's brand new two-story edifice with 10,000 square feet of shopping space is slated to open by next spring on Bedford Avenue and North Seventh Street, a representative for the organization said. Demolition work began on the store's previous site, a 97-year-old building, last week.  

"The [new] store will have more of a department-store feel with better lighting, larger aisles and a better shopping experience in general," said the representative, Tim Raines. "In short, this is not your mother's and father's thrift store."

The former store, which opened in the early 1970s and has been closed for more than a year, offered just one level for shoppers, Raines noted.

"It's not the old dusty dingy stores of the past where people are stuck in a hole in a wall," said Raines of the new model, which he said would surpass even the quality of Manhattan's Chelsea store, since the Williamsburg store would be newly constructed.

But even though the space would be upscale, he said the clothing would not discriminate based on style or quality.

"We accept new and gently-used donations of all styles," Raines said, explaining that donations were taken from all the stores, processed at the organization's warehouse, and then redistributed to the shops. Proceeds from the stores benefit Salvation Army's adult rehabilitation centers, he noted.