Ballard Avenue's Bop Street Records is relocating to a new Market Street location that can hold maybe the 250,000 records housed in the upper level of the store. That does nothing for the 200,000 records in the basement owner Dave Voorhees is currently searching through to find a Dusty Springfield album.

The problem of what to do with 200,000 records – some valuable, some not– is vexing Voorhees, and he's open to suggestions.

"If I had five to 10 people who wanted to start a record store and not compete with me, I would be find," Voorhees said before offering an invitation to the neighborhood. "Dave needs serious suggestions. Come commiserate with Dave."

As daunting as moving nearly half a million albums is, Vorhees said he is excited for the relocation to the former Tableau space at 2220 N.W. Market St.

"The place I got is a 100-times better location," he said. "The foot traffic is going to be 10 times what it is now."

Greg Shaw, owner of Second Ascent a few doors down from Bop Street, bought the building at 5219 Ballard Ave. N.W. to turn it into Second Ascent's bike shop. Voorhees' lease ends June 30.

Voorhees said his initial reaction was that he didn't want to relocate from the space he has occupied since 2001.

"It's sort of like a comfortable shoe," he said.

But, now he is ready to move into what he said is the best location he has ever had for a store.

Voorhees started selling records on Aurora in 1974 before moving to Greenwood. He had a space in the Carnegie building on Market Street in 1984 before moving in 1987 to the space now occupied by Golden City on 20th Avenue Northwest.

Before settling on the Tableau space, Voorhees said he looked at a number of Ballard's empty properties, including the former Ballard Camera, Epilogue Books and Ballard Library locations. He even looked at moving into one of the new retail spaces beneath the NOMA condos on 24th Avenue Northwest.

The new space, though smaller than his current store, is better than all of the other options, he said.

The size may limit future live music shows at Bop Street to acoustic performances, but Voorhees said he is looking forward to creating a record-selling synergy with Sonic Boom across the street and having more visibility.

He said longtime Ballard residents still stop in occasionally, saying they had no idea there was a record store there.

On April 17's Record Store Day, Voorhees said he sold 600 records, averaging one transaction every six minutes. But, that barely put a dent in the amount of vinyl, tapes and CDs he needs to box up.

If anyone in the neighborhood wants take some of that workload off Voorhees' hands, Bop Street Records will be offering discounts until the move.