Idaho Mountain Trading moving into old Youth Ranch store

Davin Napier, on the floor at Idaho Mountain Trading.

After 29 years at the corner of Shoup Avenue and B Street, Idaho Mountain Trading is moving, The good news for downtown is that they are relocating to the old Idaho Youth Ranch store on Shoup, where they will have twice as much room.

Owner Richard Napier, who started the business in 1977 on A Street, hopes to have the business open in the new location by Oct. 1, said his son, Davin, who returned from Boise two years ago to rejoin the team. Remodeling is being done by Ormond Constrcution.

When finished, Mountain Trading will have 12,000 square feet, double what it has had in its current location. "It will allow us to open up the store and give customers a more thorough experience," Napier said. It will also allow them to keep all their inventory on the floor year round, instead of moving bikes to the basement when ski season starts. "We'll be a four-season store," he said.

Mountain Trading is buying the building from Idaho Youth Ranch, which moved out to Woodruff Avenue near WinCo Foods. Kristi Staten, executive director of the Idaho Falls Downtown Development Corp., said they are hugely relieved that such an important business is making such a big investment in downtown.

In anticipation of the move, the merchandise in the store has been marked down as high as 40 to 60 percent. "The less we have to move, the better off we're going to be," Napier said.