Henry Bear’s Park, a children’s toy store in Cambridge, will shut down a location in Porter Square at the end of this month and reopen in a long-empty new location a block away, a move driven by rising rent prices, staff said.
The toy store will move from 17 White St. to a home just two blocks over at 1957 Massachusetts Ave. The store will close a week before the big move, on April 30.
It will fill the Roach’s Sporting Goods space, which has been more empty than filled for the past 12.8 years since the outdoors store closed at the end of May 2012, becoming a poster child for Cambridge’s problem of long-vacant storefronts.
“If that spot is going to finally get something nice, I’m happy,” said Ruth Ryals, president of the Porter Square Neighborhood Association. “It’ll be a happy ending to an eyesore. It’s just a blight on the neighborhood.”
An attempt to reach the leasers of the space was unsuccessful Monday. Previous messages left at the phone number posted in the storefront weren’t returned.
The Henry Bear’s Park store is moving because it can no longer keep up with its rising rent prices at the Wilder-owned Porter Square Shopping Center, store manager Kelly Brogan said.
“The amount that our rent has gone up is astronomical,” she said.
The move follows a similar relocation in the fall, when Porter Square Books, which closed at its formal White Street address in the shopping center and opened at 1815 Massachusetts Ave. in October. An email seeking comment was sent Monday to Wilder.
The first Henry Bear’s Park opened more than 45 years ago. There are now 10 locations, including in Arlington, Brookline and Charlestown, as well as one in Providence.
Many customers were sad to see Henry Bear’s Park close in Porter Square temporarily, Brogan said. The store has been tucked away in the shopping center, a convenient spot for customers with young children looking to shop around, for 17 years.
Ryals said Henry Bear’s Park was always a great place where she could read a nice book in the corner with her grandchildren.
“Any small business has got to go where they can afford the rent and attract customers,” Ryals said. “The problem is is that it gets [stores] further out to where most of us don’t have a car, and we don’t have as much time as young parents do.”
She’s interested to see what Henry Bear’s Park does with the old Roach’s space with its large basement, similar to what the Curious George children’s store had before it closed in Harvard Square in 2016. “You could do a lot of really nice stuff in that basement,” Ryals said of the new Henry Bear’s Park.
The children’s store hopes to be up and running at its new Massachusetts Avenue location between mid- to late May, Brogan said. The hours will be the same as in the current location, which is only a 90-second walk away.
A stronger
Please consider making a financial contribution to maintain, expand and improve Cambridge Day.
We are now a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and all donations are tax deductible.
Please consider a recurring contribution.