Longtime local Rodney Hoffer is bringing back Santa Cruz Hardware.

The owner of Aptos Hardware and Westside Hardware, which both carry the Ace Hardware brand, Hoffer’s investing almost $500,000 to open an independent store. The location is 1214 Soquel Ave., in the heart of the Eastside business district.

Hoffer got the keys to the former Blockbuster Video store from landlord Bei-Scott Company last week and plans to remodel and reopen in July.

He will hire about 12 new employees.

“I’m extremely excited,” he said, choosing the name the Santa Cruz Hardware in honor of the historic business — founded in 1883 — where he got his start.

“It’s an incredible location,” he added. “I’ve been looking for a good space on the Eastside for 10 years.”

A hardware store owner since 1986, Hoffer, 61, of Corralitos, has survived an earthquake and a roller coaster of an economy.

He became his own boss after 15 years of working in high tech when he bought Santa Cruz Hardware.

Why hardware? He grew up on a farm in North Dakota, 11 miles from the town of Kief, population 100, named by Ukrainian settlers.

“On a farm you’re always fixing stuff,” Hoffer said.

Over the years, he bought three hardware stores and closed two, adjusting to changing times.

His latest project, in 2007, increased the size of Westside Hardware by 50 percent in the wake of the Mission Street Safeway expansion.

That investment paid off.

“We expanded the inventory,” Hoffer said. “Things have been good. It’s been positive every year.”

He had been talking with Bei-Scott Company for about six months when Blockbuster announced the shutdown as part of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization, then took its giant blue sign off the building. Bei-Scott will repaint the exterior, now a steel gray.

The Eastside store is 5,000 square feet, about the same size as Hoffer’s Westside store, and will have a similar layout.

Aptos architect Chuck Burket is overseeing the remodel, with work being done by friends or employees putting in overtime after their regular shifts.

Hoffer estimated fixtures, equipment and computer system cost about $130,000, with another $350,000 for inventory.

He’s squeezing the start-up money out of cash flow rather than approaching a banker for financing. He would like to open this month but it will take six weeks to get fixtures ordered from a company on the East Coast.

The city permit process, in contrast, was speedy.

“I got the permit the same day I went down there,” Hoffer said, noting that use remains retail and parking met the city requirement.

Hoffer plans to move a third of the employees from the Westside and a third from Aptos to give the new store a veteran workforce.

He expects to hire about a dozen new employees to fill the resulting openings. Applications are being accepted at the Aptos and Westside stores.

For this store, he is taking a new approach. Instead of relying on the Ace brand, as he does in Aptos and on the Westside, he plans to be an independent, making his own choices about products based on his experience.

“I want it to be my own hardware store,” he said.

“It’s cool he’s trying that model,” said Lydia Corser, who owns Greenspace, which specializes in green products for home and business building projects. She hopes the two retailers will cooperate to compete, a new trend known as “co-opetition.”

Although the Eastside area recently lost a longtime retailer, Gateways Books & Gifts, it has gained a new one, Monkey Girl Beads, bringing moms with children in tow, and Cayuga Vault, under new ownership, is being remodeled.

In addition, caterer Joshua Keenserver plans to open Conscious Creations in May or June in the former home of Black China Bakery and Cafe Tazzina.

Keenserver, 34, of Pleasure Point, plans an all-organic cafe and bistro with a farmers’ market.

Source:http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/ci_17928607