RADFORD -- One downtown business is dark, and another will be soon.

Pascal's Kitchen on East Main Street in Radford closed its doors Dec. 16.

Encore Artful Gifts, which has been for sale since early December, will close Feb. 28.

The closing of Pascal's Kitchen may seem sudden to some, said owner Jeana Moreno, but she had been negotiating a sale that fell through.

Moreno said she planned to stay open through Dec. 20, close the week of Christmas and then not reopen "if the deal didn't go through, but I would have been losing money staying open."

She plans to leave Radford in May, so a sale or closing would have happened regardless of the economic climate, she said.

Also waiting for a buyer is Stacey Price, the owner of Encore Artful Gifts.

There was one person who expressed interest in buying Encore, but an offer was never made, she said.

She would still like to see someone come forward and make a serious offer for the store, she said.

"Announcing [the closing] puts a new level of urgency on it," Price said. "People don't want to believe it until they really hear it from me."

Encore was opened in 1990 by Carolee Bondurant, who owned the building -- called the Norwood Center at the time -- with her late husband, Ken Bondurant. The couple donated the building -- now the Bondurant Center for the Arts -- to Radford University in 1997.

While some downtown Radford stores are calling it quits, there is financial help for those remaining.

Main Street Radford, the group designed to promote the city's commercial district, announced in December incentives to business owners for improvements in the district, which has seen multiple closings this year.

The program is open to Main Street members, business and property owners in the historic district as well as on Main Street itself, with non-Main Street members paying a $60 administrative fee, according to a news release.

Incentives will be given each fiscal year on a first-come, first-served basis to stores that comply with design guidelines set forth by Main Street Radford.