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A Hyattsville store specializing in crafts by Prince George's County artists will close by the end of May, just eight months after it opened.

"We opened the store the week before the stock market crashed," said Tina Van Pelt, owner of cash-strapped Artists on the Avenue, an early arrival to the 25-acre housing and retail development along Route 1 known as Arts District Hyattsville.

Pelt, a Riverdale Park resident, conceived the store as a place where community artists without access to studio or gallery space could gather to make, sell and teach — a place so local, she said, that some artists could walk there.

"I felt our neighborhood was lacking a place to sell local art other than the farmers market," Pelt said. "There are so many artists here, it's kind of astounding, actually."

Kim Stark of Greenbelt is one of the 63 artists who have their work for sale at Pelt's store. She works with Shrinky Dinks, a printable plastic invented in the 1970s that shrinks when baked. The store is laden with items ranging from oil paintings to photography, from hand-knitted sweaters to glass jewelry.

"I feel kind of sad," Stark said about the store's impending closure. She said she likes selling her art at a bricks-and-mortar store in the area, especially one where she can volunteer her time. It's a more personal approach than selling online or through seasonal craft fairs in northern Virginia or Washington, D.C., she said.

About 80 percent of the artists who display at the store live in Prince George's County, Pelt said.

"I'm kind of militantly [for] Prince George's County," Pelt said. "I feel like everyone has to drive over to Montgomery County to get anything nice, and I'm sick of that. I'm all about us buying and selling for each other."

County residents hoped a vibrant arts and retail landscape would have emerged by now in the arts district project on Route 1 by developer EYA. But progress on the second phase of the project has been slower than expected, said Aakash Thakkar, EYA's vice president of development. It's a challenge to secure financing and to attract businesses willing to open a new location in the current economic climate, Thakkar said, adding it was the same all over the country.

"Because of the economy, we haven't moved as quickly as we would have liked to develop a large segment of retail across the street," he said. "It is coming, and we hope to start that retail later this year."

That will be too late for Pelt, who has already seen entire days go by without a single customer entering the store. "People don't really see this as a retail location," Pelt said.

Pelt cut back on store hours after the Christmas season. The store is now open just four days a week, Thursday through Sunday. Last weekend, Pelt's partner, Paul Richards, manned a booth at the Downtown Hyattsville Arts Festival and Pelt offered a walk-in workshop on making fused-glass jewelry at the store less than a block away. Despite customer interest, sales remained slow, forcing the store's closure on May 31.

The timing of the closure is also personal, Pelt said. She would like to spend more time with her three children during the summer.

Pelt works three days a week as an accountant with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and runs the store the other four days of the week. Richards, a computer specialist for the American Center for Physics in College Park, helps manage the store and runs its Web site.

Like Pelt, most of the artists who display at the store have day jobs and pursue their craft on their own time. Artists on the Avenue offers them a venue to consign their work for a 50-50 split, with a larger share if they volunteer their time at the store.

Although she said she's lost about $13,000 since the store opened, Pelt hasn't given up on the concept behind Artists on the Avenue. She's exploring ways to partner with an existing business in the county, like a café or restaurant, where she can display artwork for sale.

"I want a place where people have a reason to shop, where they'll be having a coffee anyway," Pelt said.