Amaryllis, Handbags In The City boutiques to close in Harbor East

Harbor East&#8217;s locally owned shopping options will shrink by two this month.Amaryllis Handcrafted Jewelry, the boutique that has been a Baltimore mainstay since 1986, will close its Harbor East location on Friday, its co-owner confirmed Tuesday. Handbags In The City will also close later this month.Citing a lack of foot traffic and an overall economic downturn in the city, the owners of the Amaryllis at 830 Aliceanna St. said they will focus their efforts on their other location at The Shops at Kenilworth in Towson, which opened last April.&#8220;Post-Freddie Gray, there was a lack of traffic and tourism and high rent,&#8221; said AnnaMarie Fiume, who co-owns the business with Allie Wolf. &#8220;It&#8217;s all of those things. It was a business decision. That is why we opened up Kenilworth. It was a decline for two years.&#8221;Fiume estimated a 30 percent drop in business over the last two years.&#8220;Even the smaller meetings stopped coming to the hotels. Business is down,&#8221; she said.Fiume said that the business started in 1986 in Owings Mills and then moved to The Gallery in the Inner Harbor a year later. It moved to Harbor East in 2009.She&#8217;s hopeful that Kenilworth will be a successful location.&#8220;It was a slow start. But people have to get re-acclimated to us,&#8221; she said, adding that the Kenilworth location is 750 square feet compared to its 1,000 square-foot location in Harbor East. &#8220;We&#8217;ve been a city store. It&#8217;s the first time that we&#8217;ve been a county store.&#8221;Neighboring boutique Handbags In The City will close in January, according to owner George Sakellaris, who plans to retire and eventually move from Baltimore. That boutique is running a closing sale offering deals as much as half off brands such as Marc Jacobs, Tom Ford and Tory Burch.

Amaryllis, Handbags In The City boutiques to close in Harbor East

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