Florio’s Shoes will close its doors later this year after 98 years selling shoes to folks in downtown Greeley.

Brothers Mark, 66, and Brian, 64, Florio will retire with the store’s closure. They hope to keep open until Dec. 1, but an influx of business in recent days could mean a closure as early as November. A retirement sale will offer customers savings of 20-80% off until closing.

Four generations of the Florio family have operated the store. Mark and Brian took over the store’s operations from their dad Ed in 1990.

Leo Florio, the Florio brothers’ great uncle, opened the store in 1922 at Greeley Dry Goods, 814-816 9th St. The shoe shop moved to its current location at 820 9th St. in 1954.

Mark said the building is changing hands as the owner, their mother Marilyn Florio, reaches her 90s and wanted to sell the building. The brothers approaching their late 60s, Mark said they had no plans to move the business.

“It’s time to close it up,” Mark said. “It has nothing to do with bad business because business has been phenomenal.”

Mark said he’s enjoyed helping people with problem feet over the past nearly three decades running the store.

Since posting about the closure on social media, Mark said the store has been getting responses from all over the country, and even overseas, from Italy.

Ashley Fusco, Brian’s 37-year-old daughter and owner of Raven Sign Studio, will purchase the building. Fusco said she’s exploring a couple of options with the downtown space, as she considers the possibilities and limits of the 1903 building. She plans to move Raven Sign Studio to the back of the building from its current location at 2305 27th St.

Bianca Fisher, executive director of Greeley’s Downtown Development Authority, said the announcement of the longtime downtown store’s closure brought to mind the December 2017 closing of Salzman’s Shoes, 911 8th Ave.

Florio’s Shoes is hosting a retirement sale before closing later this year. (Trevor Reid/treid@greeleytribune.com)

“It’s sad to see the era come to an end,” Fisher said. “You have these businesses that have just been landmarks in downtown for almost a century, which is just incredible when you think about business today and how quickly businesses change or morph.”

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to show the store was originally located at Greeley Dry Goods. The story had incorrectly stated that the store first opened at its current location.