The cold December wind sweeps through the quiet parking lot of Dane’s Discount store, where a large sign proclaims, “STORE CLOS- ING” above shiny new motor scooters with prices slashed in half.

Inside, the store is eerily quiet. Barely audible is the cheery music that trickles through speakers overhead, and the usual jolly crowds of holiday shoppers are replaced by a handful of solitary bargain hunters sprinkled sparsely through the aisles. The six-year-old store is closing its doors for good at the end of the year, and the atmosphere there mirrors the solemn mood of owner Dane Wacaser.

“It’s very frustrating,” Wacaser says, glancing pensively toward the floor. “We’ve done our 65 hours of work each week for six years, and to see it not work is pretty disappointing. We’ve been going backwards since the fourth quarter of last year. We’re looking down the road and don’t see a change in the near future.”

Wacaser and his two sons run the store, which features one-time bargains snatched up in bulk and offered to customers at a discount. Now the task has become liquidating inventory to try to break even.

“We’re just trying to get back to zero,” he says matter-of-factly.

Dane’s Discount is one casualty of a tough economic climate that has seen consumers holding on to income that was once considered expendable. Sales of big-ticket items, such as the scooters sitting in front of the store, have dropped dramatically, Wacaser says, and his already-thin profit margin has simply vanished.

“We had never been really profitable, and the downturn just finished us off,” he says. “There’s the bottom line, and we were on the wrong side of it for a little over a year. We looked at it and didn’t see this Christmas season being good, and we knew it was time to pull the plug.”

Besides Wacaser’s bargain store, several other local businesses — Brew Bakers Caffe, Coco Bon Gourmet candy shop and River Wilde gift store to name a few — were shuttered this year as the troubled national economy continued to flounder, despite reassurances from the federal government that economic recovery is under way.

Consumers are concerned about the future – and legitimately so – says Mike Farmer, director of the city’s Office of Planning and Economic Development.

“I think there was, in the past 12 to 18 months, a kind of malaise with the larger picture, with people not feeling good about their investments, not feeling good about the value of their home, their job,” Farmer says. “They were timid, afraid, whatever word you want to use. People pulled back and held on to their money.”

As the troubled national economy sputters toward a fork in the road, it could veer toward recovery or collapse – an uncertainty that has Springfield’s consumers, business owners and government bodies scrambling to cut costs and hedge bets. At first glance, the economic numbers don’t seem encouraging, but some Springfield professionals say the future looks promising.

Scary figures Seeing the big picture can be tough when the economy is concerned, so experts look to certain indicators for clues about economic health – things like unemployment rates and business growth. Additionally, the rate of home foreclosures in a community has become an indicator of concern lately because of waves of home

continued on page 12