Kingsburg Vintage Market Draws Shoppers to Downtown Retail Corridor

With support from the Kingsburg District Chamber of Commerce, entrepreneur Casey Hansen officially opened her business, 3rd Time's a Charm Vintage Market, in downtown Kingsburg on March 21. The store features repurposed and refurbished home décor and furniture, adding a new shopping destination to the city's quaint boutique-lined, walkable downtown.

The Kingsburg location is a variation of Hansen's other enterprise, 3rd Time's a Charm Vintage Market and Venue, which operates on Second Street in downtown Selma. That spot is a cooperative in which Hansen rents out spaces to small-scale businesses, but the Kingsburg store is all her own. While many of the items in the Kingsburg location were acquired and refurbished by Hansen herself, she also operates the market as a collective, meaning a hand-selected group of team members supplies inventory that she displays and sells in the store.

3rd Time's a Charm Vintage Market had a soft opening in Kingsburg on March 7, two weeks before the grand opening celebration. Hansen said she found her way to the "Swedish Village" after multiple patrons of her Selma store encouraged her to check out the neighboring city. "I took a little field trip and I came down here to check it out, and I just fell in love with it," Hansen said.

At the ribbon-cutting ceremony, Kingsburg District Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Lauren Nikkel described Hansen and her store as "living proof that there is always something charming to be found in what seems like nothing."

Hansen told attendees she wants shoppers to feel the full experience of being in the store, not just the transaction. "I tell everybody … just take a little piece of heaven from my store, because when you come in here, it's a whole vibe," she said. "It smells good, it looks good, it feels good, it sounds good, and I don't want anybody to think that in order to come into my store they have to buy something."

The opening lands on Draper Street, the heart of downtown Kingsburg's retail district, which extends a block in either direction from Sierra to Marion. City officials have spent years working to reinvigorate the corridor after anchor retail stores began struggling, with renewed focus following the closure of the downtown Kmart. A new vintage market rooted in handcrafted and repurposed goods fits squarely into that vision: Kingsburg City Manager Alex J. Henderson has pointed to the city's walkability and safety as foundations, asking "how do we expand on this?" with experience-based retail that you can't buy online.