Big office store competition takes out local stationery icon.

Byline: John Dignam

PUTNAM - The man who at one time opened small stores to keep the lights on in downtown buildings has flipped the switch. The lights have gone off at Shaw's Office Center.

"It was time," said Kevin Shaw, 56, who started working in his father's stationery store when he was 12.

"I wish I had another five years, but it would have been hard, physically and emotionally," he said. "You work 65, 70 hours a week, miss family events. It takes a toll.

"But our name or footprint will survive for a time at businesses throughout the area, and that gives me great satisfaction."

He sold the company's commercial business to W.B. Mason and on Thursday closed his retail store at 160 Main St. W.B. Mason's business sells via salespeople and does not have stores.

Mr. Shaw said smaller stores can compete with big national retailers on price "but not with the enormity of their presentation, their inventory, and they can't compete with their barrage of marketing."

The decision also was difficult because of its impact on employees and on organizations that depend on local retailers such as Shaw's.

"I struggled with that. I feel bad because every time a small, local business like ours closes it makes it harder for others to survive. And it has an effect on the community. We donated to the hospital, camps, clubs, organizations, food banks," he said.

Shaw's Office Center was the last longtime retailer in the historic downtown and its closing was inevitable, not surprising, Mr. Shaw said. "I'm the last of the old guard."

Downtown stores started declining in 1984 when Bugbee's Department Store, built in 1888, closed, and other retailers followed, according to Mr. Shaw.

While running the office center, he also opened a bookstore and, later, an office furniture store in separate downtown locations "to put lights on behind the windows" of empty stores. But those businesses didn't catch on.

Downtown Putnam experienced a renaissance in the 1990s with an influx of antiques dealers, and as the antiques business has slowed in recent years, restaurants have become a draw. A bookstore, jewelry store and knitting supply store have opened in recent years as well.

Mr. Shaw's father, Stanley Shaw, started a small stationery store in 1951. In recent years it became a thriving commercial business that included business machines, office supply products, office furniture, interior planning and design and a copy and design center.

The Main Street store had become a small part of the business, Mr. Shaw said, but it's where the company's heart was.

"It was the bricks and mortar. This is where people came for pencils, pads, envelopes. But they also came because there was social interaction. The employees knew them by name. They brought us baked goods and stopped to talk. It was part of a community.

"My generation grew up going from store to store downtown. We knew the owners, and they knew us. But that got lost.

"Our kids went to the mall, where it was bigger, but it was a less personal experience. They had no exposure to the little guys downtown, and you don't have the sense that these people (in mall stores) are the ones you'll see at church tomorrow," Mr. Shaw said.

"Kevin has been very supportive of the whole community his whole life, as has his family, participating in nonprofit organizations, sitting on boards. He's been very, very involved, and it's sad for him to make that decision," said Shawn Dinerman, past president of the Putnam Merchants Association, a position Mr. Shaw had also filled.

"It's disheartening," said Ms. Dinerman.

"For people who own local businesses, it's more than just a business. It's much more than that. It's part of the community," said Ms. Dinerman, who with her husband, David, has owned the Furniture Place, across the river from the downtown on Route 44, for 27 years.

Mr. Shaw said W.B. Mason had been "pushing locally, trying to make inroads along the Interstate 395 corridor for the past four years" and he noted that Staples is expected to open a store at a new shopping plaza under construction in Dayville, about three miles away.

Mr. Shaw said that while his commercial business remained strong, he saw a shift of customers choosing cheaper, inferior products to trim bottom lines. That put local merchants at a disadvantage, he said.

"We're held to a different standard. If a customer buys from a big box store an inexpensive product that doesn't last, that customer will write it off," he said.

But if a local merchant sells a cheaper product that fails, "the customers want their money back or for you to make it right.

"You can't call Mr. Staples or Mr. W.B. Mason and say you're unhappy. But you can walk in here and I'm behind my desk. I can't hide," he said with a laugh.

"I sold good stuff that lasts," he said.

Mr. Shaw sees another downturn for downtown, but he notes there are retailers on its periphery and a mix of antiques stores and restaurants that still draws people.

He said absentee landlords have been a problem that town government may need to address.

"I think we've got a couple tough years ahead. It requires small stores and a unified front. We need to get back to boutiques, shops, artisans, bakeries. I think there's hope it can be done."

He may play a part in that effort. Mr. Shaw, who owns the building where the store was located, said he has received half a dozen inquiries about the 3,800 square feet of space that fell dark Thursday afternoon.

"That's a good sign. I'm going to take six months to think things over, but it's a good sign."

ART: PHOTO

CUTLINE: Kevin Shaw, right, on the last day of business of Shaw's Office Center.

PHOTOG: T&G Staff/JIM COLLINS