"I didn't even know it was still open," said the owner of Floating World Comics, Jason Leivian, about the Lloyd Center mall when a friend urged him to consider moving his store there. That friend, Tony Remple, is the owner of Musique Plastique, a vinyl record store specializing in electronica and ambient music.
Temple was thinking of reopening a brick-and-mortar Musique Plastique, which had been in the Alberta Arts District in Northeast Portland until the pandemic closed it. Lloyd Center management was selling Remple on mall perks: no rain, free parking, great transit, and low, low rents. Remple was tempted. Leivian was intrigued.
After 16 years, Leivian had Old Town fatigue: foot traffic to Floating World Comics had dropped because office workers were staying home, and casual shoppers and tourists were being scared off by crime and people suffering from mental illness outbursts in public. With the continual stress, he was losing his empathy.
Leivian ditched the bus mall and fell in love with Lloyd mall, which is bright and clean, if eerily quiet. So in August, he moved his IKEA bookshelves and a massive pile of comic books to the former plus-size fashion store Torrid on Level 2.
"We kept their orbs, some floating worlds are appropriate," jokes Leivian, pointing to the sparkly glass light fixtures still hanging. He keeps the inventory where the changing rooms were.
He kept the "cash wrap," or sales counter, and gave it a Charlie Brown sweater pattern. In a mall store with no chain store graphics, he has mylar balloons and Chinese lanterns (for his heritage).
Aside from that, it's clear it took very little to move Floating World Comics across town. The gateway products near the door (Raina Telgemeier's Smile series, Peanuts, Garfield), the manga section, the three-figure coffee table artist editions, the weekly superhero comics (people do still buy them every Tuesday and Wednesday), the European and Asian imports that Leivian meticulously curates — there's room for it all. His favorite section is literary comics, work from Fantagraphics and Drawn & Quarterly, and artists such as Simon Hanselmann (Bad Gateway), the Hernandez brothers (Love and Rockets), and Dan Clowes (Eightball).
"Since we moved (a week ago) business has either been equal to where we were before or at times, 50% better. A lot of customers live just a few blocks away. They're like 'This is very dangerous that you're here now!'" meaning they may overspend.
Leivian won't say what his rent is, but it's less than he paid in Old Town — 16 years ago.
Floating World's success is partly due to Leivian being soft-spoken, knowledgeable and helpful (just the opposite of the Simpsons Comic Book Guy). However, Leivian also differs from the average clock-watching retail worker who only knows what's on their computer. He calls his store a destination store because he knows customers will make the trip to wherever he is. He's convinced they will also enjoy rediscovering Lloyd Center.
Leivian lists who's viewed spaces in Lloyd Center: Romance Tattoo is reopening after the pandemic, and Kickstand Comedy Club is looking for a club and classroom space. He says that former Reading Frenzy bookstore owner and city commissioner Chloe Eudaly is looking to start some kind of community space in the former Bed Bath and Beyond. He also cites Gambit Games (tabletop games) and Cultural Blend (sneakers) as indie stores that have been there before the pandemic.
Plastique Man A D V E R T I S I N G | Continue reading below
In a corner spot right by the ice rink, the guy who lured Leivian to Lloyd Center, Tony Remple, staffs the counter at Musique Plastique. He has the nervous energy of a man living his passion.
Musique Plastique moved into Lloyd Center on June 4, 2022.
Temple primarily sells used records but buys new ones from overseas. In local labels, he shows off an artist called Serb, from the Netherlands, which he calls ambient and understated electronic music, not far off of Aphex Twin. Other hits are a 1991 trance compilation and some downtempo trance from Ultraviolet Experience on the Magic Eye label in the UK. Another hit is Jacques Charlier, an octogenarian visual artist and punk rocker from Belgium.
The store has a radio station,Intro to Rhythm with turntables in the window that look out at shoppers with Orange Juliuses and H&M bags. Dana Overton partners with him on that, and a screen streams underground music videos when no one is actively spinning.
Temple says the attraction of Lloyd Center was initially that, as his broker told him, "It was clearly a good financial move, as far as the overhead," which is code for cheap rent. So how does he feel about the mall normies? As a destination store, that doesn't matter. His people will come.
"What happened was a little bit of like a snowball getting kicked down the mountain," he says of Intro to Rhythm and Floating World Comics following him. A D V E R T I S I N G | Continue reading below
He also likes being near the ice rink.
"We're now starting to see the community, and the traffic has turned. We're all bringing in our destination (people) and have good crossover appeal." Mall management is still Ann Grimmer, and he works well with her. Urban Renaissance, the new mall management company, which is behind the localize and hipsterize movement, stays more in the background, but on a recent morning, they were showing around a group from Secret Roller Disco, Secret Roller Disco which takes over abandoned lots on Thursday nights, 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. The Lloyd Center parking lot roof looks ideal.
The third new arrival, Dreem Street, is next door to Musique Plastique.
Eric Mast cofounded Dreem Street with Matthew Chambers, who is based out of Bozeman, Montana. Chambers runs Brackett Creek Exhibitions, which also has a tiny art space in Manhattan. Most of what Mast sells is puzzling graphics, a long way from what you would get at Spencer's or Hot Topic.
He does basic, water-based screen printing on sweats, T-shirts and bags in the back room. (All these stores are deep and airy, with great back rooms.) A D V E R T I S I N G | Continue reading below
It's an art project that took off when they started putting their art on fabric. They have done pop-up stores before, in Los Angeles, at the intersection of art and commerce. They call Dreem Street "multidisciplinary artists creating wearable artworks".
"Matt was doing these eight-foot paintings for a while, and his friends couldn't really afford or have places to hang an eight-foot painting. So it was a way to make something that just creates a different dialogue," said Mast.
Mast has a friend with a used furniture store he is hoping will move to Lloyd Center, and some more friends who sell vintage clothing.
Dreem Street will still sell online, but he knows that is limited. "The way that online sales works, as soon as you stop posting on social, you stop selling stuff. Everyone just doesn't even think to buy anything." Asked why that is, he suggests, "Because everyone's attention spans are so short. They just kind of wait for it to pop up." He says they will be "using the space for an excuse to have events." With the post-pandemic hunger for in-person community, he could be on to something.
Lloyd Center is huge (1,280,000 square feet), and as the chain stores quit, they left many square feet of screen-printed hoardings behind to hide the emptiness. But with a few food carts and some wireless speakers, these new shopkeepers could change the vibe completely, and make a mall where you can discover something totally new.
A D V E R T I S I N G | Continue reading below
Bookseller economics have been strange since Amazon appeared in the 1990s. Leivian of Floating World Comics, also publishes books and comics based on his market knowledge. "Since I have a shop, I get to see what people are making. I get to go through and find an artist that's already making stuff."
Even during the pandemic, that average 30% cut was good business.
"When things were slow in the brick and mortar the publishing was going strong," Leivian said. "I'm not envious of any other neighborhoods in Portland. I love the Lloyd center now, I wouldn't even move if I had the option. I don't have to worry about getting broken into." He could have moved downtown to the West End but wouldn't have the influence he has at Lloyd Center.
"Here in the Lloyd center, I do have some influence and control, in the sense that if I can invite other businesses to come in, to change what's happening in here, that's going to help all of us."
Downtown, he could maybe only influence a little strip of shops. "But what about the big changes that need to happen in downtown? Where they need to convert office to residential? I don't have any control over that. And I don't even know if the city government does."
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