Robb & Stucky heads to Tampa
By Clint Engel -- Furniture Today, July 19, 2004
Tampa, Fla. — Robb & Stucky will enter this city late this year or early next year with its largest store yet, continuing to expand on its upscale, lifestyle-oriented brand of home furnishings retailing.
The 14-store Top 100 company, with stores in Florida, Scottsdale, Ariz., and Plano, Texas, also is preparing to open its first stores in Bonita Springs, Fla. — a new-generation Robb & Stucky Patio store in September (see story on page 1) and a full-line unit in November.
In Tampa, the retailer is taking 120,000 square feet on two levels of a former Lord & Taylor department store in International Plaza Mall, a regional shopping center with upscale anchors including Neiman-Marcus and Nordstrom.
Robb & Stucky liked the location — its first enclosed mall site — in part because the store is centrally located in the mall and has an outside entrance as well as interior access, said company President Fred Berk. He said exterior access is critical because the company has a big designer-oriented customer base, who come specifically to shop the store and not necessarily the mall.
When Tampa opens, Robb & Stucky will close its 40,000-square-foot unit in nearby Clearwater, Fla., and transfer the staff to the new store.
Berk would not disclose projected sales for the new store, but indicated he expects big things.
"We've been in Clearwater and looking at Tampa for several years, waiting for the right opportunity to become a regional store as opposed to a local store," he said. Berk said the Tampa store should pull shoppers from as far north as Gaines-ville, as well as Ocala, Sarasota, St. Petersburg and Clearwater.
He added that the more-than-$2.5 million project will include new features, describing them as lifestyle showcase spots throughout the store.
"We have a great physical plant to work with," he said. One attractive feature is an escalator that cuts through the middle of the store, similar to its highly successful Boca Raton unit, also in a former department store, which opened in 2003.
"There are an awful lot of good things about the building already, and with the talent of our visual team, it will sing," Berk said.
Key suppliers will include Robb & Stucky's couture specialty lines, and upscale to better brands such as Henredon, Bernhardt, Century, Marge Carson, Ferguson Cope-land, E.J. Victor, Hancock & Moore, Lexington and Stanley.
In Bonita Springs, meanwhile, the retailer essentially is carrying out the reverse of its Tampa strategy. The unit to open in November will be a smaller store for a concentrated, thriving market.
Robb & Stucky is already drawing traffic from the Bonita Springs area to its large stores about 15 miles south in Naples and 15 miles north in Fort Myers. But Berk said the market is growing rapidly and shopping patterns are changing. Retail is moving closer in to Bonita Springs and consumers once willing to hop in the car for a shopping trip "are going to want to shop more in a localized way then ever before," he said.
"They presently don't have that ability to shop locally at an upscale furniture store and design studio," he added.
At roughly 65,000 square feet and with the ability to expand by another 20,000 square feet, the new store will show best sellers from Fort Myers and Naples.
Meanwhile, the company is preparing to move to a new 235,000-square-foot Florida headquarters and warehouse under construction in Fort Myers. With the new facility, the company expects to improve its customer service capabilities in Florida.
It plans to occupy the warehouse in mid-September and move corporate offices in December. The move will enable the showroom size of the existing Fort Myers store to expand to 85,000 square feet.
