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Saratoga Springs is the hometown of horses, history and health, and is the vacation place
for all seasons. The city is known for its thoroughbred horse racing, bed-and-breakfasts,
spas, springs, mineral water, arts and culture, performing arts, and much more. From
recreation in the Foothills of the Adirondacks, to the shopping and dining on Broadway,
we bring all of it to you in Saratoga Living, the quarterly magazine of Saratoga Springs
and Washington, Warren and Saratoga counties. |
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Mark, Betty and Lucy Straus outside The Marketplace. |
If you want to look good, you can shop at Lucia or Aggie. If you want to feel good, you can spend an hour at Massage at Saratoga or Yoga Mandala. Got a sweet tooth? Stop at Spa City Cupcakes.
And that’s not all: The Marketplace at 454 Broadway offers estate jewelry at Gemset; vintage and consignment clothes at Recycling Red Dresses; home décor at Pangea; gifts from Peru at Kusikay, from Egypt at Hamada and from Turkey at the Bazaar; something old at Downstreet Antiques; something flowery at My Favorite Things; and the studio of photographer Niki Rossi. There’s even Psychic Advice from Cindy.
In the post-department-store era of urban specialty boutiques, a visit to The Marketplace is ideal for browsing and buying. The indoor cluster of stores and more is smack-dab in the middle of Saratoga Springs on the sunny side of the street. |
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Orchestrating the bustle is versatile entrepreneur Mark Straus, who has co-owned the building with Tom Gardner since the late 1990s. Straus and his wife Betty are well known in Saratoga Springs and beyond for Mabou, a something-for-everyone store that dominated the city’s consumerscape for more than three decades. “Those were the days when shops tried to have something for everyone,” Straus says, noting that shoppers today seek smaller, more personal venues that cater to idiosyncratic yearnings. The Marketplace is obviously the right model for the moment, because there’s a waiting list for tenants even in today’s tight economy, and Straus is considering how to add more square footage for retail.
Straus is a modest, soft-spoken guy who tries to pass off his success as “luck” and “being in the right place at the right time,” but the truth is that he and his wife of almost 40 years have an overarching vision of stewardship for the circa-1900 building. He carries the Saratoga Springs Preservation Foundation file and photos of the building throughout the last century in his briefcase.
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“The building was here 100 years ago, and it should be here 100 years from now,” he says. “You have to update, remodel, use and re-use the space. The goal is to leave the place better than it was when we found it. We have a role to fulfill as retailers, to help stores get off the ground and survive. And we have an obligation to the community, too. For example, we are making the building ‘greener’ with upgraded, energy-efficient heating and air-conditioning systems. We’re also planning a facelift for the façade, discussing how to make the flat roof into a garden patio and looking at how to make The Marketplace more of a community space.”
One idea: using the space as a venue for musicians. “We discovered by accident during Victorian Streetwalk that the Marketplace has amazing acoustics. We’d like to facilitate that experience more often,” says Straus. Belly dancers and Irish musicians already have performed and he’s
eager to schedule more events.
Second Photo: Lucy Straus, who grew up working at Mabou, the family’s successful something-for-everyone store, is the mastermind behind Lucia, a chic women’s boutique. |
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