Fowlers meets fire code with Olympic-size splash
By Clint Engel -- Furniture Today, April 22, 2007
Knoxville, Tenn. — When Fowlers Furniture was building its new distribution center here and looking into the cost of water tanks needed to meet fire codes, someone offhandedly suggested the retailer simply put in a swimming pool.
Don Fowler, owner of the five-store midpriced company, did just that.
The new 100,000-square-foot facility not only features racks up to its 40-foot ceilings, but a 40-foot by 80-foot Olympic-size swimming pool, 11 feet deep and soon to be open to some 160 employees — and to selected civic groups, churches and other charitable organizations. The pool is handicapped-accessible and has four shower-equipped changing rooms.
People typically are dumbstruck when they hear about the pool, said Bethel Poston, marketing manager for Knoxville-based Fowlers.
"At (the High Point) market, when we told people that our new distribution center has a swimming pool, they just said, 'What?' " he said.
Poston said Fowler always has been extremely civic-minded, supporting a local children's hospital and various charities, including those battling juvenile diabetes and muscular dystrophy. But this is probably "something a little above and beyond," he said.
The pool, separated from the main distribution center by a wall, should be open in about four weeks, Poston said, about the same time Fowlers opens a 50,000-square-foot outlet in the facility. (The outlet is set to double in size before long.)
The whole project — distribution center, outlet and pool — is a $7 million investment, he said. In addition, Don Fowler purchased a local radio station, WLIL-AM, for $750,000 and moved it to the site. It's the oldest station in the University of Tennessee Volunteers Network, broadcasting UT ballgames since 1950.
The distribution center replaces a smaller leased facility and serves Fowlers' four Tennessee stores — all within a 60-mile radius of Knoxville — and its Macon, Ga., unit.
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