Robb & Stucky tries new mix
Concept teams patio, indoor environments
By Clint Engel -- Furniture Today, July 19, 2004
Bonita Springs, Fla. — Robb & Stucky is partnering with Whirlpool/KitchenAid and a custom-cabinet maker here for the next generation of its patio store format.
The upscale retailer acquired a 25,000-square-foot building on U.S. 41, a former restaurant and retail establishment, and will use 17,000 square feet for its indoor/outdoor displays. The rest will be leased to entrepreneur Mike Fenn for a KitchenAid Lifestyle Home Products showroom — a working showplace for Whirlpool Corp. appliance brands and other products for the kitchen, laundry room and even the garage.
The store is scheduled to open in September, two months before Robb & Stucky opens its full-line Bonita Springs stores about 300 yards away.
Robb & Stucky says the concept aims to offer a mix of experience and lifestyle retailing unlike anything seen before, with integrated and fully operational kitchen and laundry room settings that flow to indoor patio settings and outdoor settings.
Some vignettes will follow familiar Robb & Stucky lifestyle themes, such as contemporary, relaxed living or gracious living. The kitchens and laundry rooms will feature upscale KitchenAid appliances, along with cabinetry from Wood Mode Custom Cabinetry.
In one part of the store, consumers will be able to hit a remote control and watch a garage door roll up to a display of Whirlpool's Gladiator GarageWorks brand organizing and storage systems.
Consumers will be able to test-drive appliances by baking in the ovens and cooking on the stoves, or bringing in a load of laundry to wash. The showroom also will have a 38-seat, amphitheater-style cooking school, equipped for events including demonstrations by celebrity and corporate chefs.
"We think this is a great marriage for the KitchenAid brand, the premier high-end brand in the industry, with the premier high-end furniture retailer," said Mark Wilson, director of national account sales for Whirlpool.
The kitchen showroom was inspired by Whirlpool's Insperience Studio, which opened about two years ago in Atlanta's Buckhead Place shopping center. The 12,000-square-foot Whirlpool-owned store also serves as a product training ground for Whirlpool employees and builder customers, and generates feedback from consumers, Wilson said.
Robb & Stucky CEO Clive Lubner and President Fred Berk visited the Insperience Studio earlier this year, and the wheels started turning.
Around the same time, Berk recalled, he and Lubner also visited a cooking school similar to the Insperience one. On a wintry day, they found some 25 women with kids in tow, learning how to make gingerbread houses.
"I think Clive's vision on this is very unique," Berk said. "How do you bring people into the store on a Tuesday afternoon in December?"
Berk said the Top 100 company is convinced consumers want to shop environmentally and will welcome a store with the new concept's product mix, tied together by cohesive lifestyle themes.
"We're anxiously waiting to see the development of this whole new vision and concept," he said. He would not disclose projected sales.
Robb & Stucky already has four Robb & Stucky Patio stores in Naples, Fort Myers, and Sarasota, Fla., and Scottsdale, Ariz., each in 11,000- to 12,000-square-foot range. New units will be similar in size to the Bonita Springs patio store, with 15,000 to 16,000 square feet for home furnishings display.
In addition to Bonita Springs, the retailer hopes to open two to four more patio stores this year in markets where it now only has full-line stores. None are expected to include kitchen showrooms, but Berk said Robb & Stucky will look to bring the concept to other "appropriate" markets.
