Business & Tech

Dale Music to Close, Make Room for Downtown Redevelopment

Dale Music owner Carol Warden is selling her store to developers who plan to rebuild the block in downtown Silver Spring.

Dale Music, which has been a fixture in the Downtown Silver Spring landscape for more than six decades, will close its doors June 30.

The shop's owner says the internet has changed her business, and she is selling to developers with plans to rebuild the area.

Owner Carol Warden inherited Dale Music from her father. The store specializes in sheet music, one of only a few in the state, reports Montgomery Community Media.

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A cellist, Warden has dedicated her life to the store her father opened in 1950.

“My mother became ill with breast cancer and I was studying in London and I got a call to come back and take care of my mother. But, then it turned out to be taking care of the store and my father, too, because my father had a heart attack from the stress of my mother’s illness,” Warden said.

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Over the years the shop became a popular place for musicians looking to add to their collections. But with a changing economy and the ability to now download sheet music, the business model no longer works.

“The music business isn’t what it used to be because of the Internet and Silver Spring is having a redevelopment and I don’t want to stand in the way of that or possibly couldn’t stand in the way of that,” said Warden.

She recently accepted an offer to sell the business to developers looking to rebuild the block.

“It’s going to be missing,” customer Miwako Fujiwara told MyMCMedia. “I don’t know where I have to go now. Because often this music shop has specific things that I need to find that are very difficult.”


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