Opportunity Village gets OK to open temporary thrift shop

Paul Takahashi

The temporary home of Opportunity Village is a 25,000-square-foot retail space located at 4600 Meadows Lane in the northern valley.

By Paul Takahashi

Friday, Sept. 24, 2010 | 2:05 a.m.

The Las Vegas Planning Commission approved a special-use permit Thursday for Opportunity Village to operate a temporary thrift store in the northern valley.

The store is scheduled to open Oct. 11 and will stay open for at least two years, store manager Ben Levos said. The 25,000-square-foot retail space, located at 4600 Meadows Lane, will house hundreds of pieces of donated merchandise — clothes, furniture, electronics and antiques — that will be sold to raise money to rebuild the charity’s Main Street shop.

On July 11, a fire heavily damaged the Opportunity Village Thrift Store, a downtown fixture at 921 S. Main St. About 35 percent of the 19,000-square-foot building was destroyed, Las Vegas Fire and Rescue spokesman Tim Szymanski said. The cause of the fire is still unknown.

“I felt a great deal of disappointment and remorse,” said Ed Guthrie, the charity’s executive director. “Opportunity Village operated in that facility for over 50 years. When you’re in a place for 50 years, you have a lot of memories.”

The charity hopes to have its old home — perhaps with a new art gallery, offices and meeting rooms — rebuilt in 18 months, Guthrie said. In the meantime, the charity will lease out the Meadows Lane location, using it for retail and donation pickup.

“It’s a Band-Aid,” Guthrie said. “The fact that the thrift store burnt down offers us a blank canvas.”

Since the fire, the non-profit group has stored its goods at two donated locations: A 30,000-square-foot GES warehouse and 25 trailer trucks on the Freeman Co. parking lot in the southern valley.

“It’s fabulous,” Guthrie said of the companies’ donations. “It’s just unbelievably generous.”

Opportunity Village serves about 1,700 people with intellectual disabilities a year, helping them with assessment, training and job placement, Guthrie said. About 15 clients worked full-time at the thrift store alongside volunteers and high school students participating in the charity’s nine-week job discovery program.

After the fire, all the shop workers had to disperse to the non-profit’s three other locations.

“Our main goal isn’t just to make money but to help those individuals with intellectual disabilities,” Guthrie said. “They would like to be back in the store.”

For more information about Opportunity Village, visit www.opportunityvillage.org.