Wood-Armfield closing underperforming Cary unit
Clint Engel -- Furniture Today, November 25, 2002
Cary, N.C. — Wood-Armfield is closing its W.A. Home store here, the apparent victim of poor timing.
The Top 100 company opened the 32,000-square-foot store in this affluent and technology-rich suburb of Raleigh in the spring of 2000, about the time the tech-bubble was starting to burst.
"It has never worked out for us. We struggled with it," said Phil Kennett, president of the five-store Wood-Armfield, which operates Wood-Armfield and Utility Craft in High Point and Gallahan's in the Fredericksburg, Va., area.
Kennett said W.A. Home was one of the most upscale stores in greater Raleigh, pulling customers from the Research Triangle Park area with a mix of home furnishings from Lexington and Stanley as well as a Thomasville Home Furnishings store within the store.
But after the location opened, high-tech companies began laying off people "by the droves, and if they weren't laid off, they were waiting their turn," he said.
The retailer budgeted for W.A. Home to do about $6 million a year, but never made it, Kennett said.
"We just felt that we could put our resources to better use," he said about the decision to close. "It's been a hindrance to what we could do in other places."
Wood-Armfield has no plans for new stores, but is enhancing its 160,000-square-foot flagship store in High Point.
A store-closing sale run by Daniel Lynch Sales has begun and is expected to run through the end of the year. Kennett would not disclose projected sales from the event.
Overall, Wood-Armfield is predicting an increase in sales this year over an estimated $74.7 million last year, due largely to booming business at Gallahan's, where Kennett said sales are up about 20%. In High Point, business is about flat with last year, and in Cary, the company is expecting an increase over last year because of the closing sale.
