The owners of Coastal Urge, a retail apparel business started in 2008, opened a new store recently in downtown Wilmington, and they plan to open more new locations soon.

The 1,700-square-foot  store at 117 Grace St., where a grand opening celebration will be held beginning at 11 a.m. Dec. 6, is the fifth Coastal Urge location for owners Jeoffrey Nathan and his wife, Catherine. Coastal Urge stores can also be found in Mayfaire Town Center, Wrightsville Beach just before the drawbridge, Bald Head Island and The Market Common in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

On Wednesday, Jeoffrey Nathan said the Coastal Urge on Grace Street and another new store, Outdoor Equipped at 272 N. Front St., will complement each other rather than compete for the dollars of downtown shoppers because they each have “a completely different product mix.”

Coastal Urge stores are stocked with a wide range of apparel for a coastal lifestyle, according to a Coastal Urge news release, from technical outerwear to “beach formal” to preppy casual wear.

Nathan said the dynamic between Coastal Urge and Outdoor Equipped will likely be similar to that of the Mayfaire Town Center location of Coastal Urge and another Mayfaire retailer, TrySports. He said in downtown Wilmington, he can envision a customer who runs triathlons going to Outdoor Equipped for running shoes but buying their yoga clothes at Coastal Urge, for example.

“We’re really excited that there’s somebody else there, and hopefully we’ll get some more retailers to open up on Grace Street,” Nathan said. “The more stores, the better – more people have a reason to come downtown.”

Outdoor Equipped is expected to open Friday, according to the store’s Facebook page. Coastal Urge on Grace Street had its soft opening a couple of weeks ago.

Nathan said an increase in activity downtown and growth just over the bridge in Brunswick County were factors in the decision to open the Coastal Urge on Grace Street.

“A lot of our customers live downtown now,” and more business professionals in their 30s and 40s seem to be moving there, Nathan said. These days downtown, Nathan sees families walking to restaurants to eat dinner and people running and exercising through the city’s streets, a change from years past, he said.

Coastal Urge will be opening more stores in other areas of the state, Nathan said. Many of the stores’ customers come “from Raleigh and points north,” the news release said.

“We’ve taken a lot of feedback from different demographics of our customers and kind of narrowed in on different opportunities where there’s not a lot of retailers with the same brands as we have in our stores,” Nathan said of expansion plans.