The owner of Fort Knox Drive-Thru Self-Storage, which recently opened in Roanoke, Va., intends to revive a community market on the facility grounds. Happy’s Flea Market operated for years on the 11-acre site at 5411 Williamson Road but closed in 2016. Developer Jim Cherney, CEO of Cherney Development Co. Inc., hopes to re-open the event next month under the new moniker “Happier Days,” he told the source.
“At one point in time, there were over 400 vendors here; and on a given weekend afternoon, there would be 1,100 shoppers here visiting this site,” Cherney said.
Cherney acquired the property in 2017 for $950,000. The self-storage project included conversion of a pre-existing 90,000-square-foot structure to drive-through, interior self-storage. The flea market will be hosted on the back four acres of the site, the source reported.
“We’re hoping to have 400 folks that are interested in moving their goods through the flea-market system and hopefully introducing another 1,000 people a weekend to visit and take advantage of the goods and wares that they can get nowhere else in Roanoke,” Cherney said.
The storage facility also offers office space for rent and will be home to the Williamson Road Area Business Association. “I think that once we shine a lot on the economic opportunities that are afforded to, not just this neighborhood, but this site, we’ll have a dynamic response,” Cherney told the source.
The developer is also converting a former Kmart in Danville, Va., to another Fort Knox location. Based in Roanoke, Cherney Development specializes in commercial-property conversions and multi-family housing. Cherney has developed 14 self-storage facilities in North Carolina and Virginia.
Source:
WDBJ, Old Happy’s Site Set to Bring Back Flea Market
