Lorne Loder moves up the street and proves business is good downtown.

Ballistic, the cool and very successful clothing and skateboard shop, has finally outgrown itself. After nine years in the intimate original building, the boards, the gear, the purses, the sunglasses and stickers are starting to crowd the many customers and demand to try on the shirts, jeans and fantastic little dresses is creating line ups at the dressing room doors. Owner Lorne Loder has seized the opportunity and is moving the store up Water Street into a new huge two storey location.

Prior to opening Ballistic in 1995, Loder lived between Toronto and Guatemala selling imported stuff at concerts like Lollapalooza and Earth Song. There were stores in Toronto with BMX or snowboard and skate gear, but when he came home to St. John’s he realized that there was nothing like that here and the demand existed.

Loder’s second realization was the demand for shoes. He points out that everybody, even if you are not much of a fashionista, has a good few pairs of shoes. He opened Stomp on the other side of Water Street in 2001. He plans to merge Stomp and Ballistic in the new Ballistic with the shoes, clothing, swim wear, club wear, casual wear and accessories for girls and guys on the first floor and snowboards and other gear (surf boards and even wet suits) on the second floor.

Something Loder’s stores have always done is appeal to a very wide age range. Kids as young as ten who are enamored with the décor and skate gear at Ballistic mix with regular customers in their 60’s looking sophisticated and sporty in the great quality cargo pants. Loder expects that combining Stomp and Ballistic will open up his clientele even more, that Stomp shoppers, unconvinced that graffiti heavy Ballistic would have anything to compliment those fabulous shoes, will realize that they, in fact , do.

Loder is excited about the aesthetic of his new store as well, planning to create an inviting, sophisticated look, with display windows on either side of the door, hardwood floors, thirteen foot ceilings and a staircase takes you to the second storey where four mannequins will look out of each of the four second storey windows. The concept is his own and he and Mark Whelan are executing the design. He wants the store to be inviting, to make people curious – an attractive addition to the downtown shopping district. Loder has never considered moving his location from downtown citing that downtown is the only place he wants to be. The recent and sudden closure of Wenches and Rogues has not shaken up downtown business owners who he says are confident. People are shopping downtown and business is strong.

The new, bigger Ballistic will open in the old Capital Formal Wear building when renovations are complete. Watch for great moving sales at the old Ballistic location this month, as well as a Grand Opening party in early June.

Excerpt from Current by Adriana Maggs May 2004 Issue No. 34.