Bruce Mayberry, the newest owner of Marshall Street’s popular Sole Connection, is in waiting mode. Later this week he expects the arrival of a new billboard, which will help him project the company’s jazzy new logo into the Syracuse community. He has until June to make room for a large shipment of streamlined products. His supplies are currently outdated because of a three-month closure. Most of all, he is eager to transform the once-abandoned storeroom into an outpost of athletic footwear on the Hill.

‘The store has performed very well (so far),’ Mayberry said. ‘Usually when a store is closed for that amount of time you have to start all over again, but customers were eager for it to open.’

Sole Connection closed last October after its original founder, John Trowse, passed away during the summer. Since Mayberry purchased the business in February – one of several shoe operations under his supervision, he has high hopes the store will further expand in the wake of its pre-existing popularity.

At his other stores in Worcester, Mass., and Syracuse, Mayberry has watched shoes sell faster than he could throw them on the shelves. He rambles off brand lists including Saucony, Nike, Dansko and Merrell like the names of his children. After selling his first pair of shoes 42 years ago, it became a fetish that immediately confirmed his life’s calling.

‘I have more fun at work than most people have on vacation,’ Mayberry said. ‘I enjoy the customers, business relationships with vendors and working with great employees.’

Several changes have already been made to Sole Connection, some of them apparent to the general public, while others only returning employees noticed. Such changes include the billboard, brightly colored shopping bags and a gradual shift in the types of merchandise sold.

Mayberry wants the store to become a niche for athletic wear, focusing on the Nike brand and various types of fashion models for all brands.

‘John had a good business and was going in the right direction, but we’re taking it in a little different direction,’ Mayberry said. ‘We want to become the Nike headquarters on the Hill … if people want Nike, they will have to come here.’

Stan Bush, a junior broadcast journalism major who worked with Trowse before his death, said the store has thus far evolved in ways profitable to its mission. How the business will continue to grow is a reflection of its current owner’s attitude and selling points, he said.

‘With John, he was trying to do too much and used a lot of different shoes in fashion,’ Bush said. ‘Now there is more of a focus on how we want the store to look.’

Unabashedly, Bush mentioned his shoe collection now consists of about 30 pairs, about 20 of which are athletic shoes. One of the reasons he cited for getting a job at Sole Connection included fueling this addiction; another bonus was meeting new people every day.

As expert shoe connoisseurs, both Bush and Mayberry tend to immediately check out people’s shoes before other physical attributes, Bush said. Part of their job as salesmen involves being able to look at a shoe and know whether or not it will sell regardless of their personal tastes, he said.

‘A successful owner can put one’s self into consumer’s shoes and know what they are looking for or want,’ Mayberry said. He fondly recalled the release of a $300 Nike shoe in his Worcester store several years ago, prompting 12 customers to sleep overnight in the parking lot so they would be first in line the next day.

‘I’ve been in the business so long, I don’t know what weird is anymore,’ he said.

Sole Connection is currently trying to clear out older styles at reduced prices to make room for the new shipments coming this summer. Lisa Granger, a freshman sports management major, strolled into the storeroom after hearing through the grapevine that Sauconys brand shoes were marked from $55 down to $20.

‘I love Sauconys and work out in them and heard they were selling them for $20 … as a student, that’s great news,’ Granger said. She complimented the ‘cute’ store as having helpful employees and a good variety of both men’s and women’s shoes.

John Intrater, a senior advertising design major who frequents the store, said he noticed Sole Connection has become the official Nike source. The temporary shortage of cutting-edge models is not necessarily a setback, he said, since students tend to prefer familiar shoe designs.

‘I like the new selection; the people here are really nice and it’s a good place to come,’ he said. Later on, he noted, ‘Some of the stuff people like are really old versions like older Nikes with certain styles and colors.’

Published on April 19, 2006 at 12:00 pm