Big time hits Roswell, N.M., at Skeen Furniture Warehouse

Retailer triples space with 46,000-square-foot store

Clint Engel -- Furniture Today, June 1, 2009

ROSWELL, N.M. — Skeen Furniture Warehouse has opened a 46,000-square-foot store here that is more than triple the size of its former Roswell location.

Skeen Furniture Warehouse more than tripled its size in the Roswell, N.M., market, with the opening of its 45,000-square-foot showroom.

Skeen Furniture Warehouse’s new store has a 3,000-square-foot Broyhill gallery featuring collections including Attic Heirlooms, Attic Heirlooms Rustic and Fireside Cherry.

The new store’s 6,600-square-foot La-Z-Boy Comfort Studio features 80 recliners and about 30 living room groups.

The three-store southeastern New Mexico retailer soft-opened the store in April. It offers an expanded presentation by the retailer, including new suppliers La-Z-Boy (in a 6,600-square-foot Comfort Studio format), AICO and Simmons bedding.

Skeen also added more product from existing key suppliers, including Ashley Furniture — now with a 22,000-square-foot dedicated space — Broyhill, Corsicana, Howard Miller, Ridgeway and Sealy.

"People come in and have not seen anything like this in town," said David Skeen, president of Skeen, which also operates midpriced stores in Clovis and Alamogordo, N.M. "It's like a big city furniture store in a small town."

The new store is the anchor for a 95,000-square-foot shopping center the Skeen family owns and has renovated.

The midpriced retailer offers sofas in the $599 to $699 range and styles ranging from traditional to causal. Skeen said contemporary isn't big for his customers, "but we do a lot of business in traditional - anything that looks like you can wallow on it."

The retailer did about $3 million in sales last year and hasn't suffered from the economic downturn, he said. Skeen said the area's oil- and agriculture-based economy has helped cushion the blow, and since consumers have responded well to his stores in recent years, he believed this was the right time to expand.

With the new store, he said he is looking for sales to reach $5 million this year.