L.D.E. Inc. will close the 19-year-old 50 Percent Off Card Shop in mid-June, one of four such stores it operates in the Spokane-Coeur d’Alene area, says Linda Powell, longtime owner of the stores, citing a decline in sales as the reason for the planned closure.

Three of five employees at the 9-10,000 square foot store at 2929 E. 27th will be laid off, while the other two will transfer to two other stores in the Spokane area, Powell says. The other 50 Percent Off Card Shops are at 7503 N. Division, on Spokane’s North Side; 212 N. Sullivan Road, in Spokane Valley; and 101 E. Best, in Coeur d’Alene. 

Powell currently employs a total of 20 employees—five at each of the four stores. 

“I’m sorry it’s happening,” Powell says, adding that when it came time to sign another lease for the store, she opted not to do so. “They wanted me to sign a 10-year lease, and I didn’t want to do that.”

Powell says business has gone downhill since a Stanek’s Nursery store, located next to the card shop at 2929 E. 27th, closed in December 2012. 

Other nearby businesses have said the opening of a Trader Joe’s grocery store at 2975 E. 29th has been a boon to their businesses. Powell says, however, she hasn’t seen an increase in business at her store since the Trader Joe’s grocery store opened in October 2011.  

“There is a lot of traffic outside the store on east 27th, but it’s not people who are stopping and shopping. It’s people who are going to work or coming home from work,” she says. 

Powell says she expects her other stores to continue doing well despite the closing of the South Hill store. She recently hired a new manager at the north Spokane store.