Legends building new Arizona factory
By Tom Edmonds -- Furniture Today, June 28, 2004
Tolleson, Ariz. — Legends Furniture, an office and entertainment resource, is building a new factory here.
At 129,000 square feet, the new facility is smaller than the combined space of the four buildings Legends has been using for production and storage, but it will contribute to a capacity increase of from 25% to 40%, said Rick Schmidgall, owner.
"With the new manufacturing processes we're installing I don't think we can sell it faster than we can make it," he said. "That will be a first for us."
Ground was broken on the project last month, and it will be complete by December, Schmidgall said, adding that with 26 acres on the site, future expansion will be a simple matter.
With consolidated production, Legends, which makes promotional and midpriced oak furniture, eliminates many of the problems that come from operating multiple factories. The new facility also will facilitate better quality controls, Schmidgall said. "We've got so many good and skilled workers spread between two factories, but now we can put them together and be all that much more efficient."
Besides expanding its domestic production, Legends continues to enjoy strong growth from its two-year-old import program. With the new facility, Schmidgall said Legends will have the capacity to explore other product categories, but he doesn't expect to head off in new directions.
"We're investigating different categories, but right now we're going to stay where we're at," he said. "We want to be important in the fields we're in."
Currently, he said, home office is a slow-growth business.
"Unless there's a technological advance in computers, it's still going to be a good category, but it's not going to be a major growth category," he said. "Of course, entertainment is following a pretty steep curve up because of the improvements they've made in televisions."
Over time, he added, entertainment will slow down just the way office did.
"We're not really concerned with growth," Schmidgall said. "When it's there, that's great, but we just want to make a good profit and have something to show for it after we've sold it. We're pretty happy with where we're at."
