The revamped 8,000-square-foot shop will open this week once installation of its point-of-sale software is complete, Bassam said. The store offers tools, paint supplies, window and screen replacements, water heaters and plumbing essentials. Its selling point, though, is offering local do-it-yourselfers — its main clientèle — knowledge of the neighborhood that's lost at big box stores, Bassam Gobah said.

"We have mostly residential customers who are buying up these old houses and fixing them up and trying to help revive the city," he said. "The need for hardware stores in the city is there."

The business partners bought the building at 16380 Warren Ave. in April for $150,000 and have spent that last few months completing a $500,000 build-out, Adnan Gobah said. Recent activity at the store has caused dozens of people to stop by in the past few weeks.

"I used to use it all the time because I prefer to shop on the block," said Herb Anderson, 52, who stopped by the hardware shop late last week to check it out.

"We have old houses with old boilers here. He was adapted to things that would go wrong with them," Anderson continued, referring to the previous owner, Bill Kamman. "He knew the neighborhood."

The hardware store had been open for around 50 years until 2017, when Kamman decided to retire and close it. Around that time, two other hardware stores in the area called it quits. Other longtime hardware stores, including as Busy Bee in Eastern Market and Detroit Hardware in New Center, have also closed and sold. Market dominance by chains such as Home Depot and Lowe's Home Improvement, combined with a general decline in brick-and-mortar sales, has spelled an uncertain future for the small businesses.

A model based on helping rebuild Detroit neighborhoods might seem merely idyllic, but it's a formula that's worked for the partners. The Warren Avenue location is their third True Value store, and Adnan also owns Hamtramck Hardware and nearby U.S. Hardware.

"We like Detroit, and we like to do business in Detroit," he said.

Adnan immigrated to Detroit from Yemen 25 years ago. He landed a job at a plant that manufactured car hitches and worked his way up to supervisor. In the early 2000s he left to start a heating and cooling business, which he exited in 2005 after opening a small hardware store in Hamtramck. He eventually bought out longtime businesses Kosinski Hardware & Supply and Sikora Hardware.

In 2017, he and Bassam partnered to buy a hardware business at 8749 Joy Road, and the following year, they bought one at 11616 Whittier Ave. Those stores are also under the True Value brand umbrella.