City Furniture plans 13 HomeStores by 2007
Clint Engel -- Furniture Today, May 3, 2004
TAMARAC, Fla. — TAMARAC, Fla.— City Furniture has updated its plans to roll out Ashley Furniture HomeStores, saying it will open 13 by 2007, including the first three this summer in South Florida.
The Top 100 company will open a 35,000-square-foot Ashley HomeStore at Sawgrass Mills Mall in Sunrise in June, followed by a 32,000-square-foot store in July in West Palm Beach and a 22,000-square-foot store in Kendall, near Miami, in August.
Total sales for the 13-store City are expected to top $300 million this year, up from $263 million in 2003, the company said in announcing its licensing agreement with Ashley Furniture. City CEO Keith Koenig said the retailer plans to double in size in the next five years.
In January, Koenig said City planned a dozen Ashley stores over three years.
He said the company also plans to jump to Florida's Gulf Coast with the first City Furniture stores there in Fort Myers, Naples and Bonita Springs in 2006 and 2007 as well as Ashley stores in Fort Myers and Bonita Springs.
Koenig said City had watched the Ashley HomeStores program grow in popularity across the country.
"It was only a matter of time before they began opening in Florida," he said. "We wanted City Furniture to be the one to bring the expanded offering to our customers."
The company will continue to carry the Ashley brand in its City stores, too.
Other City expansion plans for this year include a 220,000-square-foot addition to its existing distribution center, headquarters and showroom in Tamarac, which will grow to 880,000-square feet, and the expansion and remodeling of its Hialeah, Fla., store, which will grow nearly 20,000 square feet to 57,000 square feet.
