After four years of selling records in the same location, Dan Walter, owner of Dan's Downtown Records, will be moving to make room for Ivy Tech Community College's expansion in downtown Muncie.
"I've managed to pack a lot of stuff down here in four years; it's going to be a real challenge to move," said Walter, a 56 year old Muncie native and 1971 graduate of Muncie Central High School.
After the unanimous vote of the Muncie Redevelopment Commission last Thursday to approve the donation of a facility to Ivy Tech's Muncie campus, it was also announced that Whitinger Company would be selling the property currently being rented by Dan's Downtown Records and several other local businesses to make more room for the community college.
Walter said that he did not find out the news from Whitinger Company, but heard from a local reporter instead.
"The guy from the newspaper came in asking me how I felt about the news, and I asked him what he was talking about, and then he told me," he said. "I immediately went into shock. It was a rude awakening."
But, Walter said, it may not be as rude an awakening for him as it might be for others on the property, like the Korean Tae Kwon Do studio that has been in the space next door to Dan's Downtown Records for the last 42 years. Other businesses leaving the Whitinger Co. building include the law offices of Ronald Smith and Alan Wilson, Take Five Community Outreach, the Delaware County Republican Party headquarters and Waggoner, Irwin, Scheele and Associates, a human resources consulting firm.
Linn Crull, a partner at Whitinger Company, said that all tenets of their building should have been notified before last Thursday's meeting, and that their correspondence should continue, giving current renters as much advance notice as possible prior to the official move out date.
"It's not definitively known yet what the time will be," Crull said. "We've got a letter of intent from Ivy Tech. They've said there is some flexibility with the current tenets."
Walter said it will be two to three years before he has to make the move.
"I'm going to be looking for a new spot, trying to save up some money," he said.
In spite of CD sales being down in his store, Walter said he wants to continue working downtown.
"I know how lucky I am to be doing this [running a record store], but it's a labor of love," he said. "I'm not in it to get rich."
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