Andreah Correa and Michael Watson are two of the Nuvo employees who will move with the store to its new Oak Lawn Avenue location
Nuvo, the gift store on Cedar Springs Road, is moving in April. The store has occupied the location for 25 years.
But the store will be just two blocks away at 3311 Oak Lawn Avenue, next door to the restaurant Parigi and J. Douglas Design.
“After 25 years, we were ready for a facelift,” Nuvo owner Jon Bonsignore said. “And the synergy will be great.”
He said he noticed a decrease in foot traffic after The Bronx closed across the street from his store.
Nuvo began with one location in Austin in 1986. The Dallas store opened in 1988 and a Houston location opened n 1991. Bonsignore said they sold the Austin location and closed Houston.
The new Oak Lawn location will be almost the same size with the storeroom located on a lower level rather than in back.
Cedar Springs Merchants Association President David Richardson said he was sorry to see Nuvo leave the strip but glad they’ll be just two blocks away. But after finally filling all vacancies on that side of the street after several years, he said hoped new shops would open in the space soon.
“That leaves spaces available for someone with an exciting new concept,” he said.
He mentioned several ideas that he’d like to see fill the space.
“We haven’t had a floral market in a number of years,” he said. He mentioned pet accessories and a wine store as other possibilities that would compliment businesses already on the street and wondered if the landlord might subdivide the space to allow several retail stores to open.
A restaurant or bar would be virtually impossible to add because of limited parking. Zoning requires places that serve food to provide twice the parking as retail.
Nuvo is the last of the gift stores on the Strip. Off the Street and An Occasional Piece were card and gift stores that also had long histories on Cedar Springs Road. TapeLenders now devotes about half its floor space to gift items.
Before Nuvo opened in 1988, Under Arrest was a card store that had been in that space and before that shared the building with The Bronx for about 10 years.
