Video Library, a funky downtown video rental store that specializes in off-the-wall and hard-to-find movies, is about to lose its lease and is looking for a new location.

Owner/operator Lisa S. Harris said her lease, which had been set to expire Dec. 31, has been extended to the end of January by the owner of the building, Santa Fe business man Wirt Squires.

"We're looking into a lot of places," Harris said. "We're keeping our fingers crossed."

Harris operates Video Library with the help of partner Casey St. Charnez, who chooses the movies and is also editor of the Leonard Malten Movie Guide.

A previous occupant of the shopping center at 120 E. Marcy St. where the Video Library is located, Owings-Dewey art gallery, is rumored to have reached a deal to lease the entire property, Harris said.

No one at the gallery could be reached for comment.

Doug Roberts of Phase One Realty said he and other commercial brokers are looking for a place that could be suitable for Video Library.

"There are a lot of empty properties out there," he noted.

Harris said in an e-mail that she is looking for an "affordable, vacant, north-side location but so far has found this to be an oxymoron."

Harris also said parking is an important factor for her business, which involves people driving to her store to rent and return videos.

She had four spaces in the store's current location until the center lost its tenants, giving her a number of spaces "that was too good to be true."

Video Library first opened in 1981 in what was then called Pen Road Shopping Center, now Cross Roads Shopping Center, on Cerrillos Road at St. Francis Drive. Before moving to its present spot, the store also at one time operated at a site in College Plaza South and had a store on Marcy Street where Toyopolis is now located.

Contact Bob Quick at 986-3011 or bobquick@sfnewmexican.com