Laurie Wicks, owner of Georgetown Gifts, hopes to find a buyer for the long-time Ann Arbor store.

Laura Blodgett | For AnnArbor.com

While I make a lot of phone calls and consider myself used to cold-calling people who find themselves in difficult situations, I’ll admit I’m still not 100 percent comfortable calling a business that’s closing.

In many instances, the owners are gracious and happy to tell the final chapter in their story. In some cases — most often corporate situations — the employees may not know about the closing, or they won’t talk about it.

In most cases, even if an owner feels like the transition needs to happen, there’s a sense of sadness and loss. That’s particularly true among so many of the long-time businesses that this region seems to have lost during the past year.

Those stories often are among the most-read at AnnArbor.com, as readers react personally to the changes in the local retail landscape, which they also take very personally.

That’s one reason that I keep making the calls. People want to know about who’s leaving this business community, just as the new stores and restaurants coming into the marketplace warrant mention.

But I’m rarely as surprised during one of those calls as I was last week when I called Georgetown Gifts.

The store, owner Laurie Wicks stresses, is not closing.

Yet after decades in Ann Arbor, 14 years under Wicks and after a much-publicized move to Huron Village on Washtenaw, Wicks is ready for a change.

“I’m retiring,” she said, when I asked whether it was true that her store space was listed for lease.

But, she stresses, that doesn’t mean the end of Georgetown Gifts: “We’re officially for sale.”

And with that, she proceeded to tell me about her decision to step out of her retail business just as the economy as sales were rebounding so that she could stay on track toward reaching her ambition of retiring at the end of her 15-year ownership plan.

Georgetown Gifts is far from the only business in the region for sale. Some websites list at least 2 dozen options, and I’m confident more are being quietly shopped.

What becomes unique about Wicks and her situation is her willingness to tell her staff, her customers and her potential buyers in such a positive way.

Wicks loves the store and her staff, but she’s ready to move on. And she wants to hand it over to someone who’ll continue the business.

“What I’m hoping for at the bottom of my heart is that someone will come in here and run a family owned business, but put their own signature on it,” Wicks said.

The lease for the store is up at the end of August 2012, so she’s prepared to see it through or help a buyer take it over.

A lease renegotiation also could be possible, said listing broker Jon Gordon of Prudential Snyder and Co. in Ann Arbor, with someone willing to extend the term.

The listing’s been active for more than a year, Gordon said, during a time when finding a buyer during the poor economy was not likely. The price - still undisclosed - has dropped to the value of the inventory and fixtures.

Gordon hopes that, along with an improving business climate, helps find a buyer.

“The store is a wonderful little store and it has tremendous support among the population,” Gordon said.

Some customers are new, since the store relocated to the center with Whole Foods, Panera and other high-traffic retailers.

Others remain loyal from the store’s days in Georgetown Mall, where it started and remained until the entire center shut down in anticipation of redevelopment.

It’s a card shop in an era where card shops have suffered. But it’s also a gift store, with brands like Vera Bradley. And it’s a post office franchise, fulfilling a function on the east side where no U.S. Post Office operates. The staff of 12 has been there for many years.

And Wicks said the holiday season showed 2-3 percent growth after two hard years. “We went forwards instead of backwards,” she said.

So as Ann Arbor gets used saying farewell t some of the stores and restaurants that have been here for years, Wicks hopes that Ann Arbor instead will get to greet a new owner for the store. One who can see the potential in it to reshape it to fill emerging retail needs in the city. She things a nice boutique with women’s clothing would be a good fit on Washtenaw, for example.

She’ll keep the store open through the end of the lease if no buyer emerges.

In the meantime, she’s still working there full-time, buying new inventory and thinking about what the next phase of her life may hold.

She’s also grateful to customers who support small local businesses and made her success at the store, which she bought after being a customer there, possible.

“I love this,” she said of the store. “I love my customers. I love what I do.”

Paula Gardner is Business News Director of AnnArbor.com. Contact her at 734-623-2586 or by email. Sign up for the weekly Business Review newsletter, distributed every Thursday, here.