Danielle Lopes hoped to celebrate the fifth anniversary of her store Adagio Dancewear, on Main Street, with a celebratory customer-appreciation sale.   Instead, she is holding a going-out-of-business sale.

Almost five years to the day that she opened the boutique to provide her dance students with costumes and dancewear, Wareham resident Danielle Lopes has decided to close her shop.

It was a tough decision for Lopes, and it is a loss to Main Street.  The shop, named after the dance exercise that, Lopes explains, "helps a dancer perform with majesty and grace," epitomizes the small, family business.

Lopes' two children play with a babysitter in the store's office.   Her husband, Eric, helps with supplies and inventory. Lopes' mother, Marlene Souza, operates the Adagio Travel Agency in the unit next door.

Lopes even returned back to her hometown to start her career.  The Old Rochester Regional graduate was living in California after receiving a degree in dance education from Dean College.  A friend convinced her to come back east and open a dance studio with his cousin, which became The Balancing Room Dance Academy in Marion.  After nearly six years of hearing students ask where they could find leotards and tights, Lopes decided that she would provide the answer.

"There just wasn't any place around here, so I thought 'why not?'"

The store then expanded to include medical uniforms for staff at Tobey and room for the travel agency.

But a bad economy and two consecutive years when the building's roof leaked and destroyed inventory made Lopes decide to focus on other pursuits.   She currently teaches fitness and Spanish at Best Friends Preschool in addition to her classes at The Balancing Room, and she hopes to increase her commitment to those activities.

"One door closes, a window opens, right?"  she asks.

The hardest part though is losing the sense of community that the store created.

"The thing that killed me the most were my customers," Lopes said.  "So many were my friends.  I sent an email out to announce the closing, and it is heartbreaking to read the replies."

Michelle Femino of Kaleidoscope Dance is one of those friends.  Femino said that the closing will also affect her business.

"It's going to take a toll on my clients and my business because it's where our kids go," Femino said.  "Everything we offer - every shoe, leotard, or costume - I just say 'go see Danielle,' and she knows what to give them."

Souza, who will work from her home, echoes her daughter's sentiment about leaving the store.

I'll miss being with my grandkids and daughter," she said.  "Every day my two grandkids come here after school."

She'll also miss being on Main Street.

"I'll miss the neighbors, all the people going by, being part of the community," she said.  Businesses shouldn't be leaving, she said. "They should be building up Main Street."

As for her current sale, Lopes says it's not the celebration she envisioned, but she feels no regrets.

"It's a celebration of the end of a great endeavor and the beginning of a new one," she said.  "I absolutely have no regrets about opening the store.  A lot of good has come out of it."