Sacramento Business Journal - February 16, 2007
http://sacramento.bizjournals.com/sa...2/daily57.html
Russ Solomon leases Tower store on Broadway
Sacramento Business Journal - February 16, 2007
by Adam Weintraub
Staff writer
The founder of the now-defunct Tower Records chain has signed a five-year
lease for the old Tower store at 16th Street and Broadway for a new music
store.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed, nor was it clear what the new venture
will be called or when it might open.
But Russ Solomon is moving quickly, said Andy Gianulias, a member of the
family that owns the record store property and the former Tower Books next
door,
"I would expect him to be in there within 30 days or so," said Gianulias.
Solomon, 81, launched Tower inside his father's drugstore and opened his
first stand-alone store in Sacramento in 1961. The 16th and Broadway store
followed soon after and Tower eventually grew to a global brand known from
Times Square to the Sunset Strip to Tokyo and London.
But the West Sacramento-based chain, formally known as MTS Inc., got
overextended. It piled up debt as it expanded and was hurt by shifts in the
music market, with buyers moving to big discount stores or downloading music
from the Internet. The company reorganized in bankruptcy in 2002, emerged,
and went back under the court's protection last year. It was sold at auction
and its assets liquidated.
Solomon lost his job, but told The Sacramento Bee newspaper last year that
he planned a new venture of one or two stores, possibly to be called
"Resurrection Records."
Gianulias said he wasn't sure if Solomon was sticking with that name.
The Gianulias family also owns the former Tower Books on Broadway and has
agreed to a lease with the owner of The Avid Reader bookstore, he said,
although he had not received a signed copy of that lease as of Friday
afternoon.
Solomon's lease includes parking around the store and an easement allows the
book and record stores to share parking, Gianulias said. However, the lease
does not include the large parking lot across Broadway from the stores.
Linear Mode
