Halpin Music looking for new location, set to vacate iconic building in near future

ALTON - Halpin Music Company is looking to leave the building it has had since it first opened its doors in 1977.

Company President Mark Landon said the building is too big and expensive to maintain. When the company first came into being, acoustic and grand pianos were throughout the showroom. Those have been replaced by speakers, amps, drum kits, guitars and countless other instruments over the years. In the future, however, even those will take a backseat to Halpin's shifting focal point of music in education.

In a post on Facebook posted Wednesday morning, the company announced its intent to move. On Thursday, Landon told Riverbender.com the plan was to focus less on certain products and more on music in education. Currently, between the Alton and Centralia locations the company maintains, it serves more than 100 schools.

"We have more than we need [in the current building]," Landon said. "The building is fairly expensive to maintain and pay utilities. We would rather use those resources more directly toward school music."

By school music, Landon is talking about the company's current services for music education in schools, including rental and sale of instruments, instrument repair and maintenance and instrument instruction.

Currently, Landon said he is not sure where the company will be moving, but added the list of properties is short. When the move gets closer, he said the company will announce a new location.

With the new location will come downsizing of merchandise as well, Landon said. No longer catering to the traditional rock and roll elements of guitars, amps and drum kits, Halpin will instead specialize on school band and orchestra instruments, such as woodwinds and brass.

"We plan to continue to sell small goods, accessories and print music for all product groups," the company's Wednesday Facebook post said. "However, this effort to 'downsize' our business does include the decision to 'de-emphasize' some product categories that have in recent years become less and less profitable for us - namely guitars, basses, amps, digital pianos and drum sets. We have tried our best to remain competitive in the marketplace for these products, but the decision to narrow our business focus demands that we place all available business resources to that end. Our plan is to offer a smaller selection of these products in our new location, primarily geared towards the entry-level musician and student."

Besides the new location and instrument downsizing, Landon said customers of Halpin should expect the same level of commitment and service they have always experienced at the business. He said he was grateful for everyone's support following the announcement as well.

"The response to our Facebook post has been overwhelmingly positive," he said. "I'm grateful for that and the responses. I'm grateful to be able to serve our customers moving forward. They can expect the same excellent customer service and great pricing on our instruments."

More like this: