Room & Board planning Chicago street-level units
By Clint Engel -- Furniture Today, March 9, 2003
Chicago — Room & Board will move two stores here to a new downtown location at Rush and Ohio streets, giving the chain street-level exposure, which the Top 100 store expects will boost sales.
The Minneapolis-based chain plans to acquire 48,000 square feet in the DisneyQuest building within 60 days and move in early February 2004.
The space includes 6,000 square feet at street level, which will be shared by the chain's Room & Board and Retrospect stores, and 21,000 square feet on each of the second and third floors. Retrospect will occupy about one-third of the new space.
The stores will replace the company's Michigan Avenue location, where Room & Board and Retrospect are on the fifth, sixth and sevenths levels of the Chicago Place vertical mall.
"Although it's only a few blocks from our current location, we feel a freestanding building with street exposure will give us more of a presence in the downtown area," said John Gabbert, founder and president of the upscale company with 11 stores in Minneapolis/St. Paul, Denver, Chicago and Southern California.
He said that exterior architectural renovations will "allow us to better communicate our design philosophy to customers."
Chicago Place has its own aesthetic point of view, which was not consistent with Room & Board's style, he said. Major renovations at the new location will include resurfacing the building's exteriors with metal and completely renovating the interior.
The look will be a "kind of classic, modern, simple design, very consistent with the furniture we sell," Gabbert said.
He would not disclose the cost of the property or the renovations. With the better location, Gabbert expects an increase in sales, but wouldn't say how much. The two retail concepts combined did about $15 million at the current location last year, he said.
All told, Room & Board's total sales increased slightly last year to about $94.5 million.
In October, the company opened in Santa Ana, Calif., its Room & Board concept of classic, simple, contemporary designs as well as a Retrospect store, with more traditional styles. The stores are in the South Coast Plaza Village, across the street from the upscale South Coast Plaza, reported to be the highest-volume shopping center in the nation.
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