After announcing in July that it would close after 20 years in business, Divine Consign found a savior who will continue running the beloved downtown Vancouver secondhand store.
The consignment shop was set to close at the end of August, but Jay Sanchez and his partner Ruben Rodriguez will take over ownership Sept. 1.
Sanchez said they didn’t make the decision lightly.
“I was scared. It was a big business decision, and it was something that I had never done at that level,” Sanchez said. “But on the other hand, I love Divine, and I wanted to be associated with it, and I wanted to keep it going.”
A group of volunteers have run the furniture store six days a week for almost two decades, including Sanchez, who helped out during the early years. He then set up shop on the lower level of Divine Consign selling vintage furniture.
Divine Consign will remain a consignment shop, but Sanchez will own it privately and the store will no longer accept donations.
Gifts For Our Community, the shop’s nonprofit giving arm, will dissolve. But before it goes, three $25,000 grants were awarded to Volunteer Lawyers for the Community Court, Columbia Play Project and Vancouver’s Downtown Association.
Divine Consign has three departments in its 10,000-square-foot, two-story building at 904 Main St., which was once home to F.W. Woolworth & Co. The showroom offers furniture, art, home decor and rugs on the main level. On the lower level, B.Divine Clothing has an assortment of donated name brands, designer clothing and accessories for women. And Divine Vintage sells a mix of midcentury furniture, barware and mirrors.
All of these store elements will stay the same — but with added vintage flair, Sanchez said.
“I don’t plan to change a lot about Divine. I basically just want to add some things and tweak it a little bit so that it offers a bigger diversity of things,” he said. “I want to infuse both the vintage and modern, and kind of present it in interior design mode so that people can see how you can mix both styles.”
Divine Consign hosted a celebration Aug. 2 in advance of the expected closure. The night before, Sanchez called Linda Glover, Divine Consign’s executive director. After going back and forth about taking over the store, he told her he would indeed step in and keep the store afloat.
“When he thought that it was going away, he just didn’t feel good about it,” Glover said.
This isn’t Sanchez’s first time owning a store in Vancouver. In March 2023 he opened The Heights Antiques and Violet’s Closet, 6609 E. Mill Plain Blvd., with Penny Clay. The store offers antiques, vintage paintings, figurines, furniture and more.
“He has lots of years of experience in furniture, antiques and vintage,” Glover said. “He’ll be able to bring in a lot of different styles.”
Glover and some of the volunteers will stick around for a month or so after Sanchez takes ownership to help with the transition process, she said. For the rest of August, all donated items will be on sale while consigned items will continue to sell as normal.
“We will also continue to embrace the community,” Sanchez said. “We will want to continue to support the community, but because we’re now for-profit, we will have to find a way to give back to the community.”
