Martin J. Connealy, the store’s manager for the past 15 years, says the Pro depended on both students and its repeat customers, who he says came to the store for its consistency. He added that the Pro has only changed ownership four times in the past hundred years.

“We’re a known quantity, we’re responsible…. You know we’re not selling half-pints of vodka to 12-year-olds,” he says.

Connealy also deflects some patrons’ criticism of the University. He says the store’s relationship with its Harvard landlord has been good.

“If anything, the University has been a little better [than other local landlords] to its long-term tenants,” he says.

But some long-term customers of the Pro says they felt otherwise. Rob Chalfen, a Cambridge artist, says that the University is expressing “its typical Harvard heedlessness” towards the store.

“They only reach out when they need it…. There’s no consideration for the integrity of the community,” he says.

The building that the University has proposed to replace the current one at 90 Mt. Auburn St. has been a source of controversy from the time of its inception.

The initial angular design, drawn by noted architect Hans Hollein, winner of the Pritzker Prize in architecture, met with criticism from members of the Harvard Square Defense Fund (HSDF).

They questioned its size and its relationship to the buildings around it.

Ultimately, the design was rejected by the Cambridge Historical Commission (CHC) in April 2001.

The rejection was made, says CHC’s Director Charles Sullivan, because the initial design was “completely divorced from its context.”

“To allow a building of that scale in that area would have been literally a blockbuster,” he says.

Four months after the CHC’s rejection, Harvard decided to turn to a new architect. The new design, drawn by local Boston firm, Leers Weinzapfel Associates, “respects the integrity of the site,” says Sullivan.

Mary H. Power, Harvard’s senior director of community relations, says that the “new design [has] been embraced by the historical commission.” She says that she hopes she will have the HSDF’s active support for the redesigned project.

But G. “Pebble” Gifford, past president of the HSDF, says that while the new building is better, the “bottom line” is that Harvard will have to replace the lost retail space from the Pro with new retail or its equivalent.