Dan’s Plants, on Davisson Road off Highway 99 in Creswell, is seeing its busiest days in the three decades it has been serving customers in the southern Willamette Valley.
Cascade Home Center in Creswell was deemed an essential business from the start, so for store manager Stan Simonsen, it has been a matter of learning to operate within the restrictions and adjusting to evolving protocols.
But he says overall, business has been incredible at the store.
“Unfortunately, this virus has been really good for our business,” Simonsen said. “Business is booming; we have been making incredible sales lately. Projects people would normally do in the summer are being done now, in the spring, because many are at home now and are still getting paid. There are a lot of people fixing up their homes – building decks, mini-remodels in bathrooms, and everyone is putting in their own vegetable gardens this year.”
The store has readjusted its operations to allow for better social distance and sanitization. Two staff members are responsible for monitoring customers to ensure they are following social-distance requirements. They’ve placed markers on the ground, and have been wiping down all surfaces intensively, so intensively that “I have never cleaned the bathroom so many times in my life,” Simonsen said.
Because a lot of people have gotten a jumpstart on summer projects, Simonsen says it is possible the store may see a sudden drop-off in home projects and repair by the time summer rolls around, but hopes that is not the case.
Dan Grousbeck, owner of Dan’s Plants in Creswell, said garden nurseries, alcohol and home improvement centers seem to have been the hot items through the pandemic.
Grousbeck said the nursery has been doing well through the pandemic, noting that he’s already sold more plants to date than he would’ve traditionally sold by July.
In wide-open spaces, the nursery can comfortably park up to eight cars in the lot, with room enough to walk around the nursery while still maintaining social distance. “People can wander around here no problem,” Grousbeck said.
Like Simonsen, Grousbeck anticipates that he could too see a drop in sales come the summertime, “but who really knows,” he said.
