After nearly two decades in business on Main Street, the Carmel Old Town Antique Mall is looking for a new home.
Property owner Mink Investments is in the process of selling the building at 38 W. Main St. to make way for COhatch, which will provide co-working and event space and private offices. Ohio-based COhatch expects to open in spring 2022 after making renovations to the 11,300-square-foot building.
Carmel Old Town Antique Mall owner Linda Chang said her shop will be open through Oct. 31, and she has until Nov. 8 to vacate the property. She said she’s been working with a broker to find another location in Carmel to reopen her business.
“It’s very difficult to find good commercial property for lease, especially in Carmel,” Chang said. “It’s not going to get any better than my current location on Main Street, prime real estate.”
Chang said she was surprised to learn that the building was listed for sale, and she was devastated to learn she’d have to relocate her business. The new owners, however, have been great to work with, she said, and are preserving the “Carmel Old Town Antique Mall” lettering on the glass on the front of the store for her as a keepsake.
Opening the antique mall was a longtime dream for Chang, who launched the business in 2002 with a handful of antique dealers. The store grew quickly, with 19 dealers and a waiting list of 25 others within a month of the first storefront opening on Range Line Road.
The mall moved to Main Street in 2003, where Chang and her team made improvements that included adding a centerpiece staircase to the building to take customers to antique booths on the building’s second floor.
“We did so many things to make it what it is today, and there’s such a labor of love that was put into this business,” said Chang, a Carmel resident. “When I worked for my prior company, that was my goal all those years ago, to have an antique shop one day. Then it happened. I’ve been blessed. I’m very, very lucky.”
Chang said the antique mall, which is open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily, has been “crazy busy” in its last days and that its dozens of antique dealers have marked down much of the product from 15 to 70 percent.
Change said she plans for the shop’s five employees to remain with the business when it reopens.
COhatch will provide 30 private offices and coworking space for more than 75 people in the future Carmel location. Its event space will be available for rent evenings and weekends, with rental fees funding COhatch scholarships for local nonprofits.
“We’re excited to have a space like this that we can open up for corporate meetings, large family gatherings or non-profit organization events,” Grerayle Walton, COhatch Indianapolis market leader stated in a press release. “It’s just one more example of how we’re working to cultivate connectivity through spaces that have both work and social functionality.”
COhatch has locations in Indiana in Noblesville and Broad Ripple. In addition to Carmel, it is adding sites in Zionsville and in Indianapolis at Circle Center Mall and the former Polk Stables. With these additions, COhatch will operate 31 locations in Ohio, Indiana and Florida, with the goal of operating 500 locations in the U.S. by 2030.
Current has reached out to COhatch for additional information.
