New businesses are opening in Old Town as the vintage building transforms into a downtown hub.

It’s all part of rejuvenating downtown Oak Harbor without losing its maritime and historical flavor.

Old Town owners Dave and Pat Hardin are putting the finishing touches to interior renovations after painting the building, putting on a new roof and repaving the rear parking lot.

New shops and restaurants are opening alongside longtime tenants in the Hardins’ spacious two-story building at 830 Pioneer Way.

“We are very excited about the future of downtown,” Pat Hardin said.

The Hardins made a significant financial commitment to Oak Harbor. They own Old Town, also the buildings that stretch on either side to Dave’s Bistro and the Oak Tree antique store.

An old hand at business, Susie Lambert Coffin is a new tenant at Old Town. She’s putting finishing touches to Chocolates for Breakfast, a reincarnation of the espresso bar she owned near City Beach until that building sold about 18 months ago.

Coffin put the intervening time to good use. She traveled to the East Coast and studied the art and science of tea, which she will share with customers in her new location. Downstairs, she is offering gifts in a small boutique featuring everything from hats to fairy wands. Upstairs, she will offer both a coffee bar and a tea room.

She plans to serve English High Tea, by reservation only to start, on Fridays and Saturdays. The 24-seat tea room will be decorated with laces, brocade tablecloths and furnished with antiques.

Sherri Vaughn is another newcomer to Old Town. She opened Candy Bouquets, a franchise outlet, on the main floor. The store is painted brightly. The shelves are lined with bouquets of colorful candies arranged in vases, mugs and containers suitable for a variety of occasions.

This is Vaughn’s first business venture. She was selling the candies from home, but wanted wider exposure for the high quality American and European sweets and decided Old Town was just the right spot.

Meantime, work is under way refurbishing the downstairs space formerly occupied by the China City restaurant. The owners of Islands Cafe in Anacortes will soon open a second outlet under Coffin’s coffee bar. The cafe specializes in home-style cooking.

Shady Ladies’ Antiques welcomes visitors on both sides of the entrance to Old Town. The displays of collectibles, antiques and bric-a-brac set an interesting tone for a stroll through this one-of-a-kind mall.

Gloria Carothers has run her Jewelry Gallery in Old Town for the past 14 years. She is impressed with the Hardins’ progress in refurbishing the building, much of the work done by Dave Hardin himself.

“They are excellent landlords,” Carothers said.

She’s seen businesses come and go. Her first year, 23 businesses came in and went out in nine months, she said.

Carothers feels inspired by all the changes breathing life into downtown that only one or two years ago was headed to slumberland. New restaurants, shops and boutiques are opening throughout the downtown corridor.

Mayor Patty Cohen commented last June that it was the first time she could remember a collective effort by landlords and tenants to invest in downtown.

Indeed, downtown business owners formed the Harborside Merchants Association to promote the area.

Meantime, the city continues to seek grants to build a $6.3 million pier in Flintstone Park, another attraction to draw people to the waterfront and to the shopping district now called Harborside Shoppes.

Old Town is a building with a colorful past. It has been a Ford garage, a tractor store and then Pioneer Department Store.

Carothers remembers shopping there with her mother.

“I remember coming here as a little girl. They had a little bit of everything,” Carothers said.

The old building may have gone full circle. Carothers is pleased by the current mix of businesses joining her jewelry store in Old Town. Female customers, especially, have said they look forward to browsing the shops and visiting the eateries.

“This is the best combination of businesses in my time here,” she said. “The businesses complement each other.