Justin Cook | The Roanoke Times

Downtown Radford, shown here looking down Main Street toward Radford University, has seen several business close in the past year.

Vintage Cellar wine glasses are for sale at the Blacksburg store, which has been scheduled to move to a different space in the Gables Shopping Center.

Another downtown Radford storefront will be empty soon.

The Radford location of the wine and beer specialty store the Vintage Cellar is closing.

"It was a very hard decision," said Keith Roberts, who owns the store with his wife, Sheila. "I know a lot of people in Radford think we're abandoning them, but we put our hearts and souls into that store knowing it was going to do less business but thinking it was adequate enough to survive."

The Blacksburg store in the Gables Shopping Center will remain open. It has been scheduled to move to a different space in the shopping center, and the Radford store's inventory and employees will be incorporated there.

The Vintage Cellar isn't the only Radford business to feel the effects of a tight economy, said Becky Haupt, executive director of Main Street Radford. The Radford locations of Annie Kay's Main Street Market and Bohemian Trading Co., along with Imaginations Toy and Furniture, Back Porch Sundries, New River Books, PFS, Joe's Diner and Yummy's, have all closed in the past few years.

"There is some uncertainty, but there is such a community-based support of Radford that it's cyclical, and this is going to happen," Haupt said of the closings. "By getting our key people together we can really surmount this."

The Vintage Cellar has been open in Radford for four years, Roberts said. Business went up by 10 percent the first year and 20 percent the second, but leveled off the past two years, making it impossible to meet costs, he said.

"I realized it cost double to keep the store going as it would cost to shut the doors," he said. "I've been in this business for 24 years, and at this point in your career you want to be paying off debts, not adding to them."

Main Street Radford is working to organize a forum of local business leaders to plan a strategy to help businesses succeed, Haupt said.

"We have to use it or lose it," she said. "If you don't patronize our little businesses they will be gone."

Radford and other university towns have some cushion against hard economic times because of the money that staff and students bring in, but it can last only for so long, Haupt said.

"It's now that we're feeling the ripple effects of the economy," Haupt said. "Last year we were protected by the university bubble, but this year things are kind of tightening up."

Small businesses don't always have the capital to keep them afloat during hard times as larger chains do, Meg Weddle, owner of Meg's, a Radford clothing store, said of the Vintage Cellar and other local businesses that have closed.

"My first reaction is that I can certainly understand how hard it is to have two locations in these hard economic times," Weddle said. "I'm also saddened greatly because I thought that business really brought something exclusive to our Main Street."

Keith Bolte and his wife, Paula, closed the Radford locations of Imaginations Toy and Furniture and Annie Kay's recently.

The businesses simply weren't doing the volume of business in Radford that he would have liked to see, and it was easier to consolidate the Annie Kay's and Imaginations stores into one Blacksburg building on North Main Street that he already owned, Keith Bolte said.

Bolte Development Corp., a property management company for the New River Valley, is also based in the same building.

But Bolte said he thinks Radford can revitalize.

"People tell me they're impressed with the traffic flow of downtown Radford," Bolte said. "It's just cycling through -- one group of businesses might leave, but another group will move in."

Studio 325, Nagoya Sushi and Sharkey's Wing and Rib Joint are three businesses that have recently opened on Radford's Main Street.

Weddle said residents determine the ultimate fate of small businesses. If people want to have a thriving local thoroughfare, they need to shop locally.

"If people want to drive through and see a thriving local business area, they need to patronize those businesses or they will see those vacant shops start to pop up," she said.

There has been interest in selling the Radford Vintage Cellar building to a local person, Roberts said. He declined to give the potential buyer's name for business reasons.

The store does not have a set closing date yet because there isn't a firm date for the new Blacksburg location opening.