When Dee Richardson tells people that Whistlestop Antiques, the cornerstone store that for decades has been among Railroad Square’s North Star operations, is up for sale, the responses have had the feeling of a death in the family.
“Everybody I run into, they get this look on their face like my mother just died,” Richardson, a co-owner, said. “It’s ‘Oh, I’m so sorry.’ The response has been ‘I’m really sorry, we stop in there all the time.’”
It is not a death, but it is a season of change for the four families who went in together approximately five decades ago on a collective space at the corner of Fourth and Davis streets on the western border of Railroad Square. The 10,800-square foot property was listed for sale in August, a move that Richardson and her fellow owners say is bittersweet — an acknowledgment of years of relationships and community-building, but also a nod to the need to turn the page…