University Loft readies Ind. plant
By Jeff Linville -- Furniture Today, July 2, 2007
Mount Comfort, Ind. — Furniture, cabinet and vanity producer University Loft Co. will open a $22 million warehouse and manufacturing facility here this fall.
The 508,000-square-foot building just east of Indianapolis, where ULC is based, will make products including some case goods. The company also has a 600,000-square-foot plant in Morristown, Tenn., that produces upholstered furniture.
The Indiana plant will be the first site to open in a new industrial park that James Jannetides, president and CEO of University Loft, has developed here. The facility will include a 58,000-square-foot showroom for furniture, and another 20,000 square feet to display sinks and other plumbing products, which the company imports to go with its kitchen and bathroom cabinets. Amenities will include a walking track, pond and coffee shop.
"This building represents a significant milestone for ULC," Jannetides said. "Lots of competitors have looked at our unconventional ways of doing business and cannot understand why we continue to expand. It's always something new with us and I believe that is what has led us to our success."
University Loft, which employs about 220 people, also has a sales office in Malaysia. The company was founded in 1986 by Jannetides, who then was attending Southern Illinois University. He built a loft bed for his dorm room that drew attention from other students, then invested his savings in lumber, built 400 more loft units and quickly sold them.
Today, University Loft manages more than 1,200 university accounts in addition to selling to furniture stores, military post exchanges and mass merchants.
The company began selling to furniture retailers in 2002 and now has about 80 clients in the channel. It shows at the High Point Market in 14,500 square feet in Plaza Suites, and has a 6,000-square-foot showroom in the World Market Center's Building B in Las Vegas.
University Loft product has been featured on TV shows "The O.C." and "Without a Trace."
Including its contract and residential furniture business, and kitchen and bath cabinets and vanities, the company had sales of $65 million in 2006.
The company recently hired Ed Schneider as vice president of sales for the retail division, and Larry Powell as vice president of sales for the college, military and hospitality divisions. Powell's position is a new one and Schneider's had been open since Gary Johnson left the company last year.
