Disco Sports, the Henrico-based sports gear seller founded by Gail Held, pictured, and husband Lew is preparing to close its retail store aimed at individual customers and focus on team sales. (BizSense file photos)
Disco Sports is moving forward with plans to wind down its retail sales operations.
The long-running West End sporting goods store plans to kick off a liquidation sale today (Thursday) to begin getting rid of its retail inventory ahead of a fuller pivot into team sales, which is the side of the business that sells uniforms and equipment to sports teams.
The company hopes to wrap up the liquidation and close its retail arm by month’s end, though there isn’t a specific last day, according to Gail Held, who co-owns the business with husband Lew.
“We’ll continue until we get rid of the merchandise. We don’t have a set time, but we should be moving a lot of it because we have sales up to 75% on a lot of (the inventory),” said Gail Held.
The inventory liquidation comes after Disco Sports listed its storefront at 1400 Starling Drive for sale in the spring.
She said the business came close to finalizing a sale of the two-story, 9,500-square-foot building, but the would-be buyer backed out. She declined to share who had been teed up to buy the property.
The snag caused Disco Sports to reassess its real estate game plan, which is now to continue to operate team sales in the building for the time being and transition away from retail sales. Disco Sports previously shared plans to move to a new location as part of the pivot. However, Gail Held said the company continues to be open to a sale of the property.
“It’s such a cool building and I like coming here. But if somebody wants to buy at a good price, we’ll sell,” she said.
Held said she didn’t have a specific asking price in mind for the Starling Drive property at this time. When Disco Sports put the building on the market in the spring, it had an asking price of $1.4 million. The less-than-an-acre property has an assessed value of $861,000, according to Henrico land records.
Nathan Jones of Dominion Commercial has the listing for the property, which is zoned B-2C.
In addition to the buyer that previously fell through, a storage facility operator and car wash company also expressed interest in the property, which sits across the street from Regency, said Karen Held Mainwaring, Disco Sports vice president and daughter of Gail and Lew.
Other factors that pumped the brakes on a relocation were that Disco Sports didn’t have much luck finding a new spot that felt like a good fit, and the costs that would be involved in a move, Mainwaring said.
Disco Sports at 1400 Starling Drive in Henrico.
Disco Sports has been located at the Starling Drive property for nearly 20 years. The building was constructed in the 1980s for restaurant chain Darryl’s, and the property has been owned by the Helds since the early 2000s.
Disco Sports has operated in several locations in western Henrico over the course of more than 50 years. The business started when the Helds bought a sporting goods store at Ridge Shopping Center for $15,000 in 1970. It has since had stints at Parham Plaza shopping center, Regency and Westbury Shopping Center. It moved to Westbury in 1996, which was also around the time it started to sell uniforms and equipment to teams. It relocated to Starling Drive in 2006.
Disco Sports sells gear for baseball, gymnastics and football, as well as swimwear and fan apparel. The decision to focus on team sales comes in response to sports equipment manufacturers that sell direct to customers and to increased competition from online retailers, particularly since the COVID-19 pandemic. The company’s team sales department, which sells uniforms and gear to schools, Little Leagues and church sports leagues, is more profitable than the store’s business with individual customers.