Parsons Moving to Suwanee

Parsons Gifts & Cards at 2780 Buford Highway in the Duluth Station Shopping Center is moving to Suwanee. A church has purchased the building where the store is located from the landlord.

“We have to be out by Aug. 1,” said Patsy Odum, who owns the business with her husband Carey. It occupies about 5,000 square feet of the 20,000-square-foot building. The remainder of the building is vacant. Parsons Gifts & Cards will reopen in its new location within a few days after the Aug. 1 moving deadline, she said.

They built the building 15 years ago, but sold it about eight years afterwards along with the Parsons Hardware and Garden Center, which later closed. The current owner sold the building to a Presbyterian church that is relocating from Norcross, according to Mrs. Odum.

A popular place to shop, the store offers a large selection of gifts, including Brighton, Vera Bradley and Pandora merchandise lines.

The new location is in the Suwanee Jubilee shopping center between Suwanee and Duluth, she said, and about a mile north of Sugarloaf Parkway on PIB. “We’re right inside the Suwanee city limits sign.” This would be in the same area as . 

“We’re not moving that far,” Mrs. Odum said. “If I leave [the current store] here, it only takes me about five minutes to get to the new store.”

The store was given 90 days to relocate, Mrs. Odum said, because the church proposes to use the entire building and wants to start renovations. The church plans to open at its new location in October, she said.

“We really had to scramble,” Mrs. Odum said. “We found the best and closest place to our existing market.” The new leased space is comparable in size, containing about 4,000 square feet. “We’ll have less storage space,” she said. “It’s right in the middle of our market,” she added. “I was already pulling customers from Suwanee, Johns Creek, Duluth, Buford and Lawrenceville.”

The store will continue to be open seven days with similar hours, she said.

A summer sale is already in progress, with some merchandise including home décor, gifts, jewelry, and kids items discounted 25 percent, Mrs. Odum said. She plans to progressively mark down more items starting with 30 percent Thursday (June 14) “so we don’t have to pack everything” for the move.

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