A new retailer in St George is begging area property owners to open their empty buildings to rental to help revitalise the Olde Towne.

Corinne Leite opened souvenir shop Dreamscape Designs on Water Street in St George on May 1, after a year of searching for a spot.

“You would not think it would be difficult with all the empty buildings in St George,” she said.

Walking around the centre of town, she pointed out one unoccupied building after another on Water Street, York Street and the Town Square.

“If you look on real estate website Property Skipper, you do not see many of these empty buildings listed,” she said.

Some buildings housed businesses, but they were only open one or two days a week, for a few hours.

“Can you imagine coming here as a tourist and nothing is open,” she said. “So many buildings look derelict.”

Ms Leite considered setting up in Hamilton, but found similar challenges there.

“The real estate in this country is shocking in terms of availability,” Ms Leite said. “I really wanted to be in St George anyway. The town is an untapped treasure and should have more attention.”

Last summer the Corporation of St George launched a social-media campaign to entice new businesses to the area, in advance of anticipated redevelopment.

However, town manager Candy-Lee Foggo said one of the challenges was that the Corporation had no idea who actually owned some of the real estate in St George.

There is no open register of property owners for the municipality.

Ms Leite said this was one of the problems she had when trying to rent.

“They still do not know who owns half of the buildings,” she said. “I would love for more people to invest in St George, but the owners of these places have to be open to trade.”

She finally opened Dreamscape Designs where Cathy Roberts previously ran Linens and Gifts.

Ms Roberts recently retired from local retail after years in the industry.

“Cathy was my first Instagram follower when I started Dreamscape,” Ms Leite said. “I found out through social media that she was looking for someone to take over the business.”

Ms Leite would also like to start a second business in St George, but has not yet found a space to rent.

A chartered accountant, she has her own consulting business. Last year, she rekindled an old passion for drawing, then started manufacturing items carrying her artwork, such as notebooks, microfibre towels, jewellery and mugs.

“I love whimsy,” she said. “A lot of my products have Bermuda on them, but I was careful not to do that with everything. Some people like the aesthetic, without having the word Bermuda on their purchase.”

While her stock has been enormously popular with visitors – her mugs sold out right away – other items such as gombey earrings have been big sellers with Bermudians.

“The tourists don’t really know what gombeys are,” she said. “Bermudian teenagers, however, love them.”

When Ms Leite bought the business, she sold off most of the Linens & Gifts stock in a sale and donated the rest to local charity.

During a three-month renovation project, she and her son Nathan took the shop down to its bare bones, exposing the old floors and rafters.

“When everything was out of the store, we were amazed at how much floor space we actually had,” Ms Leite said. “We have about 900 square feet in here including some storage space. It is a beautiful old building.”