Capitol Hill is losing its toy store. Just four years since moving to the Hill from Madison Valley and one year after moving to street level from their previous downstairs location on 12th Ave, Izilla Toys is shutting down its Capitol Hill location to focus its retail effort in Wallingford — and make way for a new tenant.

In an announcement sent to customers Saturday, owner Jude Larene said the last day of business for Izilla on 12th will be Tuesday, July 26th:

This is going to be hard to write without getting too maudlin.  After July 26th we will be closing our Capitol Hill location and consolidating our retail efforts in our Wallingford Center location. This will allow us to focus both on becoming  a better store and expanding our ability to serve our community in new and exciting ways! 

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Jen and I have been working hard the last few years to make it work but it just hasn’t been sustainable since the economic crash that really started to show in our sales in early 2009.     

We want to thank all of you who were so supportive for the 8 years that we served the communities around the Capitol Hill location.  We also want to thank Liz Dunn, our landlord, who went above and beyond expectations as we struggled with lagging sales.    

We have loved watching all your little ones grow as our own children have grown up around and in the store and we hope that you continue to visit us all at our store in the Wallingford Center. While the Wallingford Center may be a little far for some of you loyal Capitol Hill shoppers, it’s worth the trip! You can get your kids haircut at Lil’ Klippers , buy some inexpensively priced and beautifully selected second hand kids clothes at Paron’s Closet, eat a cupcake at Trophy, and visit all the grown up shops too. Plus it has the great advantage of A HUGE, FREE PARKING LOT!

Last spring, Izilla moved to street level on 12th, taking over Retrofit Home’s space before their move around the corner to E Pike. We reported in January that the owners were looking for another business to share rent in the space. Recent visits revealed relatively bare shelves and low stock. Now word comes that store is closing.

 The mail sent to customers included an explanation for the abrupt closure: the circus and an eager new tenant:

      Reason 1) Many of you know our longtime friend and employee Lauren.  Lauren has been with us since the very beginning.  She was our first employee way back in the day! 

    Some of you may also know that Lauren is an extremely talented performer and teacher of the aerial arts.  That’s right, she’s a circus performer!  Lauren’s interest and commitment to being a professional aerialist has grown exponentially over the last few years and the time has come for her to make big changes in her life to make it happen.  Lauren is moving to Vermont in August to focus entirely on becoming the best artist she can be and we couldn’t be happier for her or more proud of her. We will miss her.

     We will also be losing Chava (who has mostly worked in Wallingford for the last year or so) beginning in August as she moves on to work in a field that she has been looking to be in for a long time.  This put us in a huge bind and would have required that Jen and I work more hours than we have to give.

 Reason 2) Part of us moving out of our CapHill space was contingent on finding someone willing to take over our lease.  We wondered and worried about how long it would take to make that happen.  Turns out-No time at all!  The folks who will be taking over the space are SUPER EAGER and SUPER EXCITED to get started so we needed to hustle out of here to so they can get to work! 

We haven’t yet sorted out who the new tenant will be. Holler, tipsters, if you have any clues.