Dan Falconer sees himself as a perfectionist.
When he opened his record store, Lower Level, on Grand River Avenue on Friday, he realized he had something special.
“I built this record store towards myself and what other people would want,” he said. “I realize it won’t appeal to everybody, but I think it’s pretty nice.”
Lower Level, 611 E. Grand River Ave., Ste. 100, offers a comfortable shopping atmosphere including couches and chairs, listening stations, a plethora of magazines and a unique selection of imported and exotic sodas such as Thomas Kemper, Root 66 Root Beer, Old Dominion, Nectracide and KavaSutra.
Falconer hopes students will eventually see his store as a place to not only shop, but hang out.
“I want kids to come in and do their homework between classes or catch a nap on one of our couches,” he said. “They need to know this is a place to chill out.”
He also plans on bringing in snack foods, such as popcorn and pastries, for customers.
Although the store is primarily independent music, Falconer said it carries a variety of genres, including independent rock, 1960s and 1970s punk, a little electronic music and hopefully a jazz section in the future. It also carries vinyl records.
“We don’t want to be known as a specialty store for one type of music,” he said. “We’re an independent rock store and we keep prices low,” he said. “We don’t mark up the CDs at all.”
Falconer said he has been very satisfied with the response the store has received since Friday, especially because the only advertisement has been word of mouth.
“It’s been better than we expected,” employee John Fossum said. “We’re testing out how it goes. The location is excellent and if that plus word of mouth doesn’t help sales we might have to do some advertisements, but so far it’s been OK.”
Botany and plant pathology graduate student Richard Smith said Lower Level carries more of the music he’s in to, like smaller bands.
“It’s cool to start up a business like this in an area dominated by Tower (Records-Video-Books) and places like that,” he said.
Fossum has worked at a record store before and knows there are days when sales are good and not so good, especially being a new store in the neighborhood.
“I expect things will go pretty good if people are into it,” he said. “We just want to be very user-friendly as far as the atmosphere.”
Psychology sophomore Dan Link likes the individuality of the store.
“It’s great that this store opened,” he said. “It’s not a corporate or chain store, it’s just a nice place.”
Lower Level also has a sound stage and hopes to have bands perform.
“Right now we are zoned as a retail residential store,” Falconer said. “So our current occupancy is limited to 60 people so we’re going through the city council to get rezoned as a venue as well.”
If rezoned, the capacity would be around 130 to 150, Falconer said.
East Lansing resident Chris Wardwell was impressed with the store.
“The variety of sodas is pretty cool and they carry a lot of really good titles,” he said. “Their prices are good too.”
Falconer hopes to eventually expand the store, making one part of it a venue and the other the record store.
“Once people find out we’re here and they give us a shot, everyone will find something new that they really like,” Falconer said.
