Gibraltar Trade Center in Taylor.

TAYLOR — Gibraltar Trade Center has always promised its customers a unique shopping experience. And unique it was. The Taylor flea market was a place where you could negotiate prices, buy furniture, adopt a rodent or reptile, choose a diamond ring for your future life partner, shop for dollar-store and used household items and customize an airbrushed t-shirt — all under the same roof.

Gibraltar Trade Center in Taylor closed on Sunday, Nov. 16 after 34 years in business, forcing dozens of vendors to relocate or close down their business. 

Some vendors are moving to Gibraltar’s last remaining location in Mt. Clemens, about 40 miles east of Taylor. Others have opted to leave the flea market setup, take a different career path or retire altogether. 

This reporter worked at Gibraltar Trade Center in Taylor for more than six years, throughout high school and college. The flea market was more than a shopping center. It was a community of vendors and customers who shared friendships and loyalties beyond the formalities of the workplace, the kind of genuine interpersonal ambiance you cannot find at corporatized malls. 

The Taylor location was sold to Menards, a home improvement chain that will look to tap into the Downriver market. 

Most vendors were not surprised by the decision to close down the flea market because of the steady shrinking of the shopping center’s customer base since 2009.

“I knew it from three years ago,” said Khodor Beydoun, who owned a business that customized vinyl signs at the trade center. “I saw it coming because of the decline of business, but it was still a painful shock when it happened.”

After news of the market’s closing became public in April, Beydoun started a transportation business in Taylor, but he remained at the flea market until its last day.

Beydoun first opened his business, K & B Signs, in 1999. He said his “neighbors”, as vendors at Gibraltar like to call each other, have become like his family. 

“I am going to miss them,” he said.

Gibraltar was open only on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Beydoun said he is anticipating the radical change in the work.

“This was my work routine for 15 years,” he said. “I don’t know how it’s going to feel to go to work everyday and have the weekend off.” 

Chris Haddad, who owns a jewelry business with her husband, Charbel Haddad, is still setting up her shop after making the move to Mt. Clemens. 

She said the emotional part is the most difficult aspect of the transition. 

“After 20 years and two months, our customers became friends we see on regular basis,” she said. “Your everyday work life is changing. That is the hardest part.”

Haddad said the financial concerns were secondary to the emotional burden. She added that she decided to move her business to Mt. Clemens after many customers told her they would remain loyal to the business regardless of its location.

“We were hesitant at first because you’re moving 40 miles away,” she said. “Most people are not going to travel this far to see somebody for business. But everybody said ‘wherever you go, we would follow you.’ We’re not even open yet and two customers have come up to Mt. Clemens to see us.”

When news of the Taylor location’s shut down was announced, Haddad said she “cried uncontrollably for days and weeks.”

However, in the midst of her sorrow, she said she found excitement to begin a new adventure. 

“There was the realizations that as humans we don’t make big changes on our own,” she said. “The universe wanted me to make a change, and that’s how it forced me. Everything in life works out for the better.”

Jamal Dakroub, who owns DLD Fashion, a clothing store, also relocated his business to Mt. Clemens. 

“I was ready for it. It did not surprise me,” Dakroub said of the sale of the Taylor location. 

He added that he chose to move to Mt. Clemens because of Gibraltar’s promise to market its last remaining location and bring customers in.

“I’ve been at Gibraltar for almost 25 years,” he said. “Customers and vendors were my friends. I would have stayed in Taylor if I had the choice. It’s weird, scary to leave after so long.”

Both Dakroub and Haddad praised Gibraltar’s management for helping with the move to the new location.

Nancy Sadek, who moved her handbags store to Mt. Clemens from Taylor three months ago, said leaving the now-closed down market was “very depressing.”

Gibraltar was established in Taylor as a close-out business by Jim Koester in 1980 and expanded to a flea market two years later. The Mt. Clemens location opened off of I-94 in the 1990’s.

Bob Koester, the manager of the Mt. Clemens market, said he hopes the new vendors moving from Taylor will increase the number of customers who frequent the shopping center.

He said the Gibraltar Trade Center in Mt. Clemens had to consolidate the space for its own retail operation, where it sells furniture, rugs and kitchen supplies, in order to accommodate the  incoming vendors. “We also had about 25 percent vacancy,” he added.

Koester said some of the vendors who are already established in Mt. Clemens might be anxious about competition from incoming businesses. 

“Gibraltar Trade Center has always been about competitors,” he said. “Our hope is that the added attendance that new vendors will bring with them will offset the concerns about competition.”