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Here’s your chance to own one of Baltimore’s favorite liquor stores: The Wine Source in Hampden is up for sale.
The cavernous, 9,640-square-foot shop carries a wide selection of alcohol and other beverages as well as nonalcoholic products like artisanal bread and cheeses.
The firm brokering the sale hopes it will stay that way.
“We anticipate the buyer of this property is an existing spirits operator that wants to capitalize and run with the 34-year-old legacy of a brand such as The Wine Source,” said Henry Deford of MacKenzie Commercial Real Estate Services in Timonium.
The property is listed without an asking price; Deford declined to provide an estimated value.
In a statement provided by MacKenzie, current Wine Source owner David Wells said it was time “to find a younger version of myself” to bring the business to the next generation. Wells, 70, purchased the store in 1990 when it was located at the nearby Rotunda shopping center. He relocated it to the current 3601 Elm Ave. address.
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One of the few outlets in Baltimore authorized to sell alcohol on Sundays, the shop attracts customers from across the city. The ability to sell on Sundays is “one of the biggest selling points,” Deford asid.
Also included in the sale, along with the business, building and liquor license, is an eight-car parking lot just outside the shop, as well as a duplex across the street.
Wells ruffled some feathers in the community last year when he announced a plan to raze the duplex at 3618-3620 Elm Ave. to create another parking lot. “Parking is a challenge all over Hampden and it’s been exacerbated by The Wine Source being here,” he told The Baltimore Banner last year. “I felt bad about it.”
He added: “The neighborhood’s been good to me and I’ve tried to respond in kind.”
Despite some opposition, Wells has approval from the city to demolish the duplex and build a 10-car parking lot, Deford said. Currently, customers can park at another lot adjacent to the duplex, but Deford said that won’t be the case long term, hence the reason for the planned demolition.
The sale was first reported by the Baltimore Business Journal. Wells, who could not be reached for comment Monday, told the Journal that doing business in Baltimore “is an ongoing challenge for obvious reasons,” including the dwindling population. “And we are less a destination store than we have been in the past and a lot is attributed to the quality of life issues in the city.”
On the Hampden Neighbors Facebook page, some expressed hope that an employee would buy the shop, or that it could become a worker-owned cooperative, as the nearby Common Ground coffee shop did last year after it abruptly closed.
Kate Khatib of the Baltimore Roundtable for Economic Democracy said in a text message that her organization, which assists businesses with the transition to cooperative ownership, had explored the possibility a few years ago with some Wine Source staff members, “but it wasn’t the right time.”
”We would, of course, love to see The Wine Source become worker-owned,” Khatib said, “and would be happy to work with any of the workers and the current owners to explore a conversion, if there is interest.”
Asked about the potential to sell to employees, MacKenzie broker Tim Harrington said whether the new buyer “is existing employees of the Wine Source or an outside group will be determined by the market.”
Harrington added that he is a Hampden resident and regular at the Elm Avenue liquor store, and believes that even under new ownership, “The spirit of the Wine Source will remain intact.”
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Christina Tkacik is the food reporter for The Baltimore Banner.
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