Loft 3H plans move from Perkins to Corporate

Loft 3H, the boutique on Perkins Road that has dressed up the overpass area for five years, is moving to the 7400 block of Corporate Boulevard next month to provide easier access to its customers, says owner Keith Kimble. By the second weekend of October, Loft 3H plans to have opened across the street from Towne Center in the shopping center housing businesses including Christian Street Furniture and Envy the Salon. “We just felt that was a better location,” Kimble says. The move comes on the heels of Loft 3H’s late-June expansion in New Orleans on Magazine Street, near Louisiana Street and the same block of The Bulldog and American Apparel. Kimble says he and his business partner Danny Watts have had double the sales on Magazine Street compared to Perkins Road. “And we’ve done no advertising, we’ve been open only three months—it’s location,” he says. Loft 3H’s floor space on Corporate will be very similar to that of the Perkins location, Kimble says, adding that he has no concerns about losing customers because of the move. In fact, Kimble says, many customers have told him that they drive past the store and go to Towne Center. “We’re a boutique, and most people who shop boutiques shop all over,” Kimble says. Rent costs more for the Corporate shop than the one on Perkins—about $3,100 a month, compared to roughly $2,300—but Kimble says he expects the difference to be nominal after receipts are rung up. “We’re going to gain [customers], for sure,” he says. —Adam Pearson