Pearl card shop folds after 20 years
Ecru cards and papers closes Pearl District store, pushes on in South Waterfront
In mid-May, LeAnn Dolan closed her Pearl District business, Ecru Modern Stationer, after 20 years on Northwest 11th Avenue. She taped a handwritten note of thanks in the window. For this small business person, it was a painful ending in more ways than one.
While moving fixtures from the store, the cash-wrap station fell on her. She dislocated her shoulder and had surgery. But she’s already back at her remaining store in the South Waterfront and working there five days a week.
Ecru sells locally made small press cards, calendars and wrapping paper, knitting together themes of travel, friendship and community.
The decision to close the Pearl shop was multilayered, she said. Her lease was due, and the COVID hangover sapping Portland’s retail energy just wasn’t improving.
In 2024, she closed her downtown shop, which in its 10 years had always been busier that the Pearl store. Dolan thinks it could have survived if city workers had gone back to work when the mask mandate ended.
“You feel the city doesn’t really appreciate how small businesses are the gas that keeps the city running,” she said.
“The Pearl location was never a heavy retail area,” she said, “but we had that corner Starbucks and a dress shop. Then REI left and Basics market left, so there was no retail close to me. Foot traffic was lower and costs were rising.”
She doesn’t know how long her South Waterfront store can fight off similar forces. Dolan notes that shopping culture has changed so much as many prefer to do everything online. “I watch Uber food deliveries all day.”
But there’s foot traffic from Oregon Health Sciences University customers, and people she met over the years at the Pearl shop are riding the streetcar down to support her.
“I’m really embracing local artists and people are loving it,” she said.