The Alberta economy has claimed another established Calgary business.
The Out There Adventure Centre at 151 8 Avenue S.W. downtown has shut after 14 years in business.
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A letter on the company website and posted on the store windows says:
“It is with great regret and sadness that we have been forced to permanently close our doors at the Out There Adventure Centre. In short, we were unable to survive the current economy in downtown Calgary.”
One of the business co-founders is Calgary mountaineer Jamie Clarke, who climbed Mount Everest twice.
Reached by phone in Mexico by Global News, he said the store’s customer base in the downtown collapsed.
“Unfortunately we just couldn’t handle the economic challenges of downtown Calgary. So many of our great customers over the years no longer work downtown and we could no longer sustain it.”
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Clarke also said the trend of online shopping has changed retail.
“The digitization of retail has shifted. So our store, bricks and mortar, really, in many ways was a dinosaur. Its days were numbered. This was compounded by the difficulties of downtown Calgary.”
Clarke said staff will hold a pop-up sale in a few weeks to sell off inventory.
He said he will now focus on his e-commerce site Liveoutthere.com.
Editor’s note: The link to the e-commerce site has been corrected from outdoor.com to LiveOutThere.com. We regret the error.
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