Looking back to 2002: Building 19 buys Spag's
This year, the Worcester Business Journal marks its 25th anniversary. In each print edition, we will highlight a major event that took place within the Central Massachusetts business community between 1990 and 2014 and how that event impacts today's business scene.
Later this year, on Oct. 13, we will publish a special 25th Anniversary commemorative edition in which we will look at the companies and business leaders who made a difference in the region, and we'll look ahead to what the coming years could bring.
EVENT: In 2002, Spag's Supply, a long-time Shrewsbury retail icon that was an early practitioner of “discount retailing,” sells to Building 19, which changes the store's name to Spag's 19.
RECAP: Six years after the death of Spag's founder, the cowboy hat-wearing Anthony “Spag” Borgatti, his daughters sell the iconic general store on the westbound side of Route 9 to the Hingham-based Building 19 chain. Two years later, the Spag's name was dropped from the awning, closing the book on a 70-year run.
FAST FORWARD: Last year, Building 19 filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and closed the Shrewsbury store, along with nine other locations. But officials in Shrewsbury are hoping an investor will come forward and reinvigorate the site to boost the already-heavy retail presence on the west end of the town. “It's hard to live up to the memories of what was once great,” Bill Eloviz of Building 19 told the WBJ last year, after his company closed the store.
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