The Gallery of the Midnight Sun, a tourism hotspot in Old Town, has been listed for sale since December 2022.
The facility, located on Bryson Drive, is listed on Century 21 Prospect Realty’s website for $795,000.
According to the gallery’s Facebook page, owner Lisa Seagrave announced in January that she plans to continue operating the business even though it is listed for sale.
In an interview on Tuesday, Seagrave said there is no reason to close the gallery’s doors.
“I’m 58, so I still have a couple of good years left,” she said. “For now, it’s business as usual.”
She said she has been running the business successfully for 25 years but she and her business partners are approaching retirement age and are planning accordingly.
“It’s been a great business to us,” she said. “We feel very fortunate to have been able to stay in business for as long as we have, but we’re getting to be an age where we have to start being serious about what the next step will be.”
She said that they had a “rough go” during the pandemic but made it through.
“My goal was to still be standing at the end of it and to keep my full-time staff employed throughout and we did that,” she said.
She added that airlines cutting back has affected the tourism industry but that visitors have already made a comeback.
“It feels really good to be having traffic through the gallery again,” she said.
The Gallery of the Midnight Sun relies heavily on Asian tourists this time of year, she added.
“At Christmas we have a lot more locals come through and probably during the summer with families visiting and that sort of thing,” she said.
There has been interest from potential buyers but no one has made an offer yet, according to Seagrave.
“I hope that somebody comes forward who is as enthusiastic as we are about what Old Town is all about,” she said. “It’s been really gratifying to be part of that business community and the community in general.
“I think there’s probably somebody out there who’s the right fit for us and we’re prepared to wait for that person to come forward.”
The online listing states that the gallery was once owned and operated by the Northwest Company, and that the sale includes, in addition to the land and building, all fixtures, equipment and intellectual property — the inventory is for sale at an additional cost.
It also states the vendor is willing to train the next owner of the business.