|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
After being left with no choice but to vacate her longstanding storefront next to the Inklings coffeeshop on Main Street, PRIMM Boutique owner Marissa Ringman has confirmed she will be moving out of Pleasanton.
Ringman had been running a pop-up shop at 400 Main St., a block from her boutique, for most of this year but after finally exhausting all of her options of finding a suitable home for her business in the Tri-Valley and the greater Bay Area, she told patrons over social media that it was time to make a difficult decision, announcing that Paso Robles would be the new home for her family and her shop.
“Paso (Robles) is such a sweet destination of creativity and has this sweet charm that I really feel like PRIMM … is going to thrive here,” she said in a video addressing customers on Instagram. “I feel so inspired. I feel at peace.”
Ringman did not respond to the Weekly’s requests for comment as of time of publication.
Ringman’s journey of closing down the original PRIMM store dates back to December 2024 when she was first forced to shut down the 520 Main St. location due to “structural issues with the building”.
“She was really old and she was really sick,” Ringman said regarding the building.
City communications manager Heather Tiernan previously told the Weekly that Ringman contacted the city in mid-March about possible mold in the building.
“At the time of inspection, mold remediation was already taking place, and staff did not observe any visible mold,” Tiernan told the Weekly back in April. “As remediation is what staff would have recommended, no further action was necessary.”
“During the course of the remediation, the company undertaking the work reported concerns about the structural condition of a basement wall,” Tiernan added at the time. “Staff observed the masonry wall and based on its condition, recommended a civil engineer sign off on the building’s safety before it was reoccupied. As of today, the city hasn’t heard anything else from the property owners in response to this request.”
Pleasanton assistant city manager Alexa Jeffress, told the Weekly Friday afternoon there has not been any movement at the 520 Main St. location to address the structural issues.
“We are currently waiting for the property owner to submit the necessary documentation to address the structural repairs,” Jeffress said.
Ringman had documented this entire journey as she tried to, at first, save the original location while she temporarily ran her store as a pop up down the street. But eventually, she learned going back to the original storefront was no longer possible.
“After 82 days of being shut down due to hazardous environmental and structural issues, we’ve now been told that returning to 520 Main St. is no longer an option,” Ringman said in a past post on Facebook in a community group.
“I recently invested over $30,000 into this space and signed another five-year lease, fully committed to growing my business in this community for years to come,” she added. “If a thriving small business with 12 years in the same building can be pushed out like this, what does that mean for the future of our downtown?”
She said the 125-year-old building had so much character and had inspired her throughout the years, which is why letting go was so hard for her.
“I’ve owned my store for 12 years in the heart of Pleasanton. It has been my heart,” she said. “My community is the reason why I bought the business.”
Since finding out the old building was no longer viable, she began looking from Livermore to Danville to relocate within the Tri-Valley. She even eyed Redwood City and Los Gatos as potential locations for PRIMM.
“I searched high and low in the Tri-Valley because of this huge, unexpected U-turn,” she said in her Aug. 21 Instagram post.
She said she didn’t want to completely uproot the business from the area but she also didn’t want to accept the first space that opened up if it didn’t inspire her as much as the original location.
“I was ready for the next chapter, but I was not going to make a financial mistake of signing up for something that ultimately was not my forever (location),” she said.
Ringman said she has always loved Paso Robles as her family had been frequent visitors of the area over the past 15 years. She said she has seen the downtown flourish in recent years and believes PRIMM will as well.
She and her wife quickly found a new home there and now that the boutique recently finalized its departure from Main Street with a going away sale that lasted from Aug. 26 to Sept. 1, Ringman said she has started moving all of her products to her new home in Paso Robles. She also posted on Nextdoor that she is selling her condo in Dublin.
And while she hasn’t found a permanent storefront yet in her new area, she said she is in no rush to do so.
“I want to be picky because this will be my next brick-and-mortar storefront hub forever,” she said.
She also said it’s not quite the end of PRIMM in Pleasanton as she still has a few pop-up events and mixers in the works for the year.
Ringman said she will never forget her time in Pleasanton and hopes people will continue to support her business through this new change.
“I’m just so blessed — I wouldn’t have changed anything,” she said. “We are so fired up (and) ready for this next step and I really hope that you stick around to follow the journey because PRIMM is evolving again.”
