Local property investor and business owner Chris Thorgesen is improving two formerly empty Main Street buildings to continue the downtown revitalization effort, he said this week.
Thorgesen recently purchased the former L.A.B. Flying Service building on Main Street. The building has been vacant since the airline went out of business in 2008. “It’s been vacant since before I moved here five years ago,” Thorgesen said.
In the last month, Thorgesen and a crew have remodeled three upstairs residential apartments that are already rented and two downstairs storefronts.
Consignment clothing store La Loft moved from the Chisel Building into one of the downstairs spaces. One is still available to rent as a business or retail location, as well as an office space or garage at the back of the building, Thorgesen said.
Thorgesen also purchased the historic King’s Store building. King’s Store closed in 2016 after its longtime owner moved south. A production crew for a locally filmed reality TV series has converted the downstairs into an office. One apartment upstairs has been rented; Thorgesen said he plans to create several more.
Thorgesen said in small-town Colorado where he’s originally from, he’s seen some communities turn to ghost towns. He doesn’t plan on that happening in Haines.
“A town will continue to go down until it becomes a ghost town, but if you put time and effort into Main Street, it comes back strong,” Thorgesen said.
His new purchases bump up the number of buildings and businesses he owns to the double digits. When asked how he finds time to be an investor, business owner, the town’s only chiropractor and a dad, Thorgesen said it’s a balance.
“Sometimes you slack on one thing while you’re working on the other,” he said. “It’s mostly about finding good people to help run the offices while you’re gone, and that’s what makes it possible.”