Changes ahead for Tillinghast Postal, Pransky & Associates

Two Morris Street businesses are making big changes this summer. Lucy Kelly and her cat Six will be retiring soon. Tillinghast Postal and Business Center and its building are for sale.

The beautiful, custom-built home of Pransky & Associates is also on the market, but George and Linda Pransky and staff are very much in business.

Lucy has loved her years running La Conner’s only office-services store with Ginger Olson, who helped her open the business in 2013.

She hopes that a new owner will continue their work.

“A dozen times a day from the day I opened people tell me, ‘I’m so glad you’re here,’” she says. “Because they’d have to go to the big town for something as simple as a black and white copy.”

Not to mention sending a UPS package, getting a key cut or having a document notarized.

Lucy thinks the building-business combo is the best way for a new owner to thrive.

The asking price is “not millions” and owning the property as well as the business gives the prospective owner a solid foundation. She calls her business“COVID-proof” – an essential business that will stay open no matter what phase the county enters.

“Nothing happens here that is discretionary income,” she says. “People come because they need to – to mail a package, or get a key cut.”

“It’s a nice package in terms of business and investment,” she says. “My hope is that somebody can maintain what exists and grow the business and that’s to everyone’s benefit.”

Six the cat is not part of the deal. “It would take some serious arm-twisting done for her to stay with the store,” she says. “That would be tough for me.”

“We should be retired but I don’t think we ever will,” said Linda Pransky about herself and her husband. “We’ll work until we drop.”

Their building at 210 Morris Street is on the market because this year’s sudden shift to all-virtual platforms confirmed once and for all that the 3100-square-foot structure, which includes a conference room and seven small meeting rooms, is too big for their business.

“We needed all that space when we were having management teams come in for coaching,” she said. “When the recession hit in 2009, that ended and never recovered.”

“We’ve been thinking of this for 10 years, but COVID pushed us over the edge.

Nearly 95 percent of their business comes from outside Washington. Until the pandemic, clients would often stay on the Pransky property near Kiket Island, which was acquired by Linda’s late great-aunt Mary J. Prettigianni in the days when the drive from Ballard to Snee-Oosh took eight hours by Model T.

“Our clients are upper end, and they spend when they’re here,” said office manager Terri Cunningham. “Going virtual does mean bringing less revenue to our little town, which is hard for us.”

Pransky & Associates will continue to work virtually and out of Snee-Oosh even after pandemic restrictions lift. When clients can once again be face-to-face, “we will rent meeting rooms and conference space from the La Conner Country Inn or Maple Hall if we need to,” said Pransky.

The Pranskys have occupied three buildings in town over their 40 years in business. The Morris Street structure was built from the ground up in 1997 by Linda’s brother Alan Skomerza to look like a vintage La Conner home. “We have a cherry hardwood floor, incredible architectural details and fixtures that look old, but the heat and water work well and the electricity is brand new,” says Cunningham.

“It’s such an amazing building,” said Pransky. “Somebody’s gotta come and fall in love with it!”