The folks at Flathead Industries Thrift Store had better wear comfortable shoes.

"We opened up to a line of waiting people Monday morning," store manager Jim Watson said as he mingled with the crowd of shoppers Thursday at noon. "They were nose to the glass."

Doors opened March 17 at the new location in the old Sportsman and Ski Haus building at the corner of West Idaho and First Avenue East in Kalispell.

"Now we're doing a week's worth of business a day," Watson said.

Director of Business Operations Mike Allen was delighted to see the overflowing parking lot all day, every day during opening week.

"It was a great day," Allen said of the opening day. "We opened it while we're still under construction."

A drive-through donation area on the south, with garage doors on two opposing walls for out-of-the-weather donations, should be finished soon. Before long, walls will go up for an employee wellness center in the back corner of the retail floor.

Allen said the 15,000 or so square feet of new retail space is about two-thirds larger than the old thrift store on Fourth Avenue West North, which had been home to Flathead Industries Thrift for 23 years.

It gives the elbow room needed to "display things like they deserve," Watson said.

Just inside the front door is perhaps the flashiest treasure. It's an antiqued-turquoise upright grand piano with artfully hand-painted cherubs on the cabinet, and well-used but clearly legible colored stickers labeling home-range keys.

There's glassware, old school desks and collectible books. It's Forever Christmas in one entire section, just across from the impressive display of stuffed toys and just in front of the soft-seating area tucked in next to the shelves of library books.

There are crutches and walker-boots, hockey gloves and ski gear, a barrel of golf clubs, computers, and a good selection of electric fans arrayed behind the barbecue grill and patio table with chairs.

"We're full," Allen said. "We got wonderful, fantastic donations. I think people saved up their donations when they heard we were moving."

He said AAA Travel and Insurance donated office furniture when that office moved to Hutton Ranch Plaza. The Job Service donated an office copier. Other donors brought in household appliances and "lots and lots of clothing," he said. "We had some antique-y Christmas bulbs and people are just scarfing them up."

Revenue projections for the new store were pretty much a guess.

"We really went into this blind," Watson said.

The old store was tucked away in an inconspicuous building across the railroad tracks from Kalispell Center Mall. Both men agreed the address of the new home is key to the cash register's newfound vigor.

"The old real estate line that it's location, location, location is obviously true," Watson said.

Being up front and center, the new store is bringing in people entirely new to the Flathead Industries Thrift Store - people, Watson said, who stop to chat and end up learning what Flathead Industries is all about.

"Our mission statement is 'Creating opportunities for people with developmental disabilities,'" he said.

Revenue generated from three stores - Glacier Thrift in Columbia Falls, Stumptown Thrift in Whitefish and Flathead Industries Thrift in Kalispell - helps support 130 people, or "consumers," who live in five group homes, receive vocational rehabilitation and supported living services.

They also work in the thrift stores.

In Columbia Falls, store manager Brian Cannavaro oversees eight consumers and one staff member. Whitefish store manager Marvin Fichter has a similar contingent. And Watson oversees both those stores, along with Kalispell's 35 or so consumers and a staff of eight or nine.

All will benefit from what Watson called the great community exposure the new Kalispell store offers. But he knows the organization owes a huge debt of gratitude to the community for bringing it about.

Between the old store's March 7 closing and the new store's March 17 opening, Montana Conservation Corps youths volunteered their time and muscles, two of the boys came back on their own for a full Saturday's work, Bitney's furniture donated use of their truck for a day, Flathead Industries board member and project manager Doug Morton rounded up a crew of friends, and many contractors still are pitching in with discounted labor and materials.

"This couldn't have been possible without the tremendous folks who volunteered their time and services for us," Watson said.

"It was an amazing thing," Allen said. "We had amazing community support."

Hours at the new Kalispell thrift store are 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday. Donations may be dropped off during those hours at the rear entrance. The store strives to be a good neighbor by maintaining tidy grounds, so managers ask that donations not be dropped off at other times when nobody can bring them inside.

For information, call the store at 755-3842.

Reporter Nancy Kimball can be reached at 758-4483 or by e-mail at nkimball@dailyinterlake.com