Broyhill opens dedicated store in Oregon
By Clint Engel -- Furniture Today, December 7, 2003
Springfield, Ore. — Broyhill Furniture celebrated a grand opening last week for a 20,000-square-foot Broyhill Home Collections store here, one of two locations launching the manufacturer's dedicated store program.
The store on Gateway Loop is owned and operated by Michael and Sheila Schwartz, co-owners of Sterling Furniture, a longtime Broyhill retailer with two M. Jacobs Fine Furniture stores, Michaels Leather & Oak and a new Furniture Factory Outlet, all in the Eugene-Springfield market area.
The Broyhill store, a former Bassett Furniture Direct with 18,500 square feet of selling space, has been a hit with consumers since a soft opening late last month, said Michael Schwartz.
"Traffic was wonderful and the selling was good" during the soft opening, Schwartz said. "I was surprised by the level of interest in the community for this type of store."
He credited Broyhill with helping build that excitement through its attractive store display work, coordinated by John Womack, who leads Broyhill's retail concepts design department. Upscale and dramatic elements include stained concrete walkways and large soffits installed over cherry-finished hardwood floors.
For the most part, the store holds true to the Home Collections prototype plans that Broyhill first presented to dealers at the High Point market just over a year ago. It features roughly 100 room settings with best-selling collections displayed near the entrance in whole-home environments. The middle area of the store has step-up case goods and upholstery as well as sofa-sleepers.
Other features include a youth area, a design center, a bedding department and a hospitality room, which serves popcorn, fresh baked cookies and beverages.
The product assortment is strictly Broyhill, with the exception of accessories, which the retailer is buying through Broyhill, and bedding by Stearns & Foster and Wickline, Schwartz said.
He would not disclose the investment in the new store or projected annual sales, though Broyhill has said it anticipates its Home Collections stores will easily exceed the average sales per square foot for U.S. furniture stores ($171 in 2002, based on the National Home Furnishings Assn.'s most recent Retail Performance Report survey).
Broyhill Home Collections was developed as the fourth and highest level of the manufacturer's gallery program and signals Broyhill's entry into the dedicated-store arena — a retail segment on which its parent company Furniture Brands International is increasingly focused.
Initially, Broyhill had planned to open about 10 dedicated stores this year, with the Oregon unit opening in this past May. But both Broyhill and Schwartz hit the types of delays typical in new store development that pushed the opening back, said Mac McCall, vice president of Broyhill Home Collections.
"We're very excited to have Michael Schwartz and his team as part of our home collections program, and we anticipate they will be very successful with it," McCall said.
A Broyhill Home Collections store in Tupelo, Miss., operated by retailer John Crawford, also soft-opened in November but isn't expected to have a grand opening until the end of this year or early next year, McCall said.
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