(Image: CHS)

When you are ready to retire from the flower business, you are ready to retire — even if you are only a few weeks from Valentine’s Day.

Flowers Just 4 U will mark its final day of business Friday after 40 years in the Central District.

Owner Mary Wesley told the South Seattle Emerald earlier this month she has been holding out hope a buyer will come along to keep a flower business going at 23rd and Cherry. Wesley said she also was invited to reopen her business on the corner after the planned affordable Acer House development demolishes the old building and finishes construction.

(Image: CHS)

Instead, she’ll finally have a break after decades of business.

CHS last visited with Wesley in 2019 as she got a boost from the community to overcome rent and business challenges at 23rd and Cherry. She originally started the shop at 23rd and Jackson before it was displaced by development there.

Eventually the corner at 23rd and Cherry will be home to Acer House, a five-and-a-half-story apartment building in an Afrofuturist design with thousands of square feet of childcare and other retail spaces with a public courtyard. Of the 114 planned apartments ranging in size from about 400-square-foot studios to two-bedroom units between 700 and 800 square fee, 30% would be reserved for low-income residents under the Mandatory Housing Affordability and Multifamily Tax Exemption requirements.

This time, development again looms — but Wesley is moving on under how own terms and hoping a new flower shop owner might come along to fill the space and start a new legacy in the Central District.

Flowers Just 4 U is located at 701 23rd Ave.

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