UPDATED: Jan. 31, 2011

J. Michael Shoes will move to a temporary location in Follett’s Orange Bookstore in Marshall Square Mall. Owners hope to open there by Valentine’s Day.

‘It’s going to be fresh and hot — and dry,’ said John Vavalo, owner of J. Michael, who is affectionately referring to the temporary location as a ‘Mini Mike’s.’

After a Jan. 21 water main break flooded J. Michael and washed out the building’s foundation, the retailer was forced to close, and part of Marshall Street closed to traffic and pedestrians. It is still unclear what happened to cause the break, which occurred in the pipeline to the sprinkler system, Vavalo said.

The area in front of the store is at risk of falling in, Vavalo said, and almost everything in the basement was destroyed. Employees are still cleaning out the store but have managed to salvage only shelving from the basement, which was completely filled with water. The store will move into the mall as soon as the space is available and the merchandise is set up. Vavalo said he hopes the move will be in a little over a week.

Daniel Lyons, broker for Marshall Square Mall, approached Vavalo the day of the water main break, Vavalo said. He asked Vavalo if J. Michael would be interested in temporarily moving. Vavalo would not disclose how much he was renting the space for.

‘A door opened, and we went through it,’ Vavalo said.

Lyons declined to comment.

The temporary space will be about 1,000 square feet, a third of the previous space J. Michael has occupied since 1983, Vavalo said. The store will occupy the temporary space for about two months or until the Marshall Street location can reopen.

A wall will be put up inside Follett’s on Monday to create a separate space for J. Michael, Vavalo said. He said it will be good for the two stores to feed off one another’s customers, but because of the smaller size and ruined inventory, the temporary location will not be able to carry nearly the same amount of products as usual. The entire men’s shoe inventory was destroyed, Vavalo said.

Vavalo said his Marshall Street neighbors have been very accommodating this past week as he and his staff of 12 cleaned up the store. Starbucks employees provided coffee one day and have allowed the store to hook into their electric wiring.

Employees were working on sorting through inventory and the history stored throughout J. Michael. Decorations upstairs mostly went unharmed. Bags and shoes from the ‘80s and ‘70s decorate the area in front of the dressing rooms, and a Pee-Wee Herman doll stands on a ledge in a back corner.

‘There’s a lot of history on these walls,’ Vavalo said.

One piece of memorabilia that was saved from the basement is a single Steve Madden shoe, one of the first Maddens sold, said Vavalo, who has met the shoe designer.

Zak Solomon, who has been working in sales at the store for more than five years, said cleaning up after the pipe break was like returning to a home after a fire.

‘It’s depressing,’ Solomon said.

Allison Garwood, an employee of J. Michael for two years, has been working in the basement removing shoes from muddy piles. Dealing with the damage done to the store was like dealing with a death, she said.

But the staff was trying to keep spirits high during the cleaning process. An extension cord was running through the store so a radio could be hooked up Friday. Top 40 and dance songs played, and staff members joked as they lined up pairs of Hunter boots, now unable to be sold.

Caitlin Doak, a J. Michael employee since August 2008, said working there was like being part of a family. She had been on her way to work Jan. 21 when she saw the crews cleaning outside and discovered the store was closed because of the water main break. But she never thought the damage was this bad and has been working to clean the store all week.

Said Doak: ‘We’ve come a long way from Monday.’

dkmcbrid@syr.edu

A previous version of this article appeared on dailyorange.com on Jan. 28. 

Published on January 27, 2011 at 12:00 pm

Contact Dara: dkmcbrid@syr.edu | @daramcbride