Pahl Tire Co.
Alexander declined to comment further on how the site might be redeveloped.
Pahl Tire Co., a longtime Madison business, is closing its doors.
The Alexander Company has an accepted offer on the property, a prime piece of real estate located just a block off the Capitol Square at the corner of Webster Street and East Washington Avenue.
Manager Doug Pahl says he will phase out operations at the tire shop over the next three months.
"I am going to retire," he says. "The business is going to disappear. There are no heir apparents."
Joe Alexander, president of the development company, says his firm "signed it up because it's a great site -- one of the few remaining in downtown Madison."
Alexander declined to comment further on how the site might be redeveloped. "We're still deciding how we want to approach it," he says. "Nobody wants to jump ahead of neighbor and city opinion until we know what we're doing."
Pat Pahl, Doug's uncle, started Pahl Tire Co. in 1936. Pat's brother Albert, Doug's father, joined the business shortly thereafter.
Doug Pahl says he started working at the shop in 1964, while still in high school. Now 64, he's been manager since 1988.
He says Pahl's has always been primarily a tire shop. "We had a retread shop at one time and a lot of fleet accounts, but we phased out of that the last 10 years because it's not profitable, at least not on our scale."
Pahl says he is slowly sharing the news with customers: "They don't blame me."
