MATT OLBERDING/Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Saturday, December 1, 2007 6:00 pm
In her 25 years of making wedding cakes, Millie Becker has seen how stressful the big day can be on brides.
So Becker plans to make things a little easier.
She bought the old Hinky Dinky grocery store building at 59th and Adams streets and is transforming it into a one-stop bridal mall.
“It’s overwhelming for brides,” Becker said. “There’s too many details, and I just thought it would be easier if they could have one place to do it all.”
Her plans include a large reception hall, and she’s in the process of recruiting other wedding-related businesses, such as a florist, gown shop, tuxedo rental, photographer and nail and hair salon, to set up shop in the building.
She also plans a nursery with baby sitters to watch kids while parents party.
And she’s hoping to have a wedding chapel, although she may not be able to meet the city’s requirements for parking. If she can’t make it work, she said, she’ll have a smaller reception area where weddings can be performed.
If it all comes together, it would be a first for Lincoln and maybe the state.
Courtney Lockridge, publisher of Nebraska Wedding Day magazine, said she has heard of similar ideas before, but never anything that has made it off the ground.
Lincoln has nothing close to what Becker is proposing, and Lockridge said the only thing in the state she knows of that’s even remotely similar is Rockbrook Village in Omaha, which has several wedding-related businesses among its dozens of stores.
“I would say that it’s relatively unique,” she said.
Laura Mease, the Nebraska state coordinator for the national Association of Bridal Consultants, said she thinks similar concepts have been done before in other states, “but maybe not like that.”
“It sounds like a nice idea,” said Mease, who owns Laura’s Couture Collection in Shawnee Mission, Kan., and is also the bridal consultants association’s coordinator for Kansas, Missouri and Iowa.
Becker likened her business to a wedding fair, except unlike an annual fair, it’s “every day, all year.”
“It’s different … that’s what I want people to know,” she said. “Nobody else has got one.”
Becker said she’s aiming to have at least the reception hall open by March so she can take advantage of the prime wedding season.
“Brides get their rings for Christmas, and right after Christmas they start looking,” she said.
The rest of the business, which Becker said will be called The Falls because of waterfall features she plans to place throughout the building, likely will develop in phases as tenants come on board.
There’s a lot of work to be done to meet her timeline, though.
The building, nearly 30,000 square feet, was most recently a medical lab testing business. It needs to be transformed into retail and reception space.
Offices and conference rooms in the front of the building will become retail bays for bridal-related businesses.
In the back is a large space that will be transformed into a reception hall with a capacity of more than 400. The hall will have a full kitchen and a bar.
According to county real estate documents, Becker paid $1.4 million for the building. She declined to say how much she plans to spend on renovations but admitted, “it’s a lot.”
Some neighbors have questioned whether what Becker has planned is appropriate for the area, which is mostly residential and a block from the grounds of Northeast High School.
But the site has had commercial zoning for decades, and another neighbor who lives in the area testified at a recent Planning Commission meeting that the neighborhood could do a lot worse.
“I find this such a much better answer to what could have possibly gone in there,” Gail Anderson said.
Becker said she “looked at every empty building in town for the past 10 years” and liked the old Hinky Dinky location for two reasons. One, it’s big enough to accommodate everything she wants to do, and, two, it’s close to her own home — she lives about six blocks away.
Lockridge said location is less of an issue than getting the word out about the business and appealing to the right demographic.
“My initial feeling is this is going to appeal to some (brides) and not to others, and it’s just a matter of is it going to appeal to enough?” she said.
Lockridge said one important thing for Becker to focus on is getting tenants that complement each other. For instance, she said, you wouldn’t want to pair the most expensive wedding photographer in town with the cheapest tuxedo rental place.
Mease agreed.
“Brides either want the best or want the best deal,” she said, “so there would need to be some consistency of the vendors.”
Whatever happens, Lockridge said, she’s excited Becker is taking the chance and hopes the community gets behind the business.
Becker is excited, too, that her longtime dream is close to becoming a reality.
“I’ve been wanting to do this for 20 years,” she said.
Reach Matt Olberding at 473-2647 or molberding@journalstar.com.