RoomPlace to open two stores in Indianapolis
Will be chain’s second new market outside Chicago
Clint Engel -- Furniture Today, July 25, 2007
LOMBARD, Ill. — The RoomPlace at Harlem Furniture will enter Indianapolis next year with two stores as it continues to branch out from its Chicago home market.
The 30,000-square-foot showrooms — the retailer’s 20th and 21st stores — are slated to open in the Indianapolis suburbs of Greenwood in January and Castleton in March, treading on the territory of fellow Top 100 store Kittle’s.
The Greenwood store on U.S. Highway 31 is being built from the ground up, while in Castleton, RoomPlace is renovating former wholesale flower shop on East 82nd Street. The stores will open as The RoomPlace, dropping the “at Harlem Furniture” tag, just like the company’s first store outside greater Chicago, which opened in Mishawaka, Ind., in January.
“We just feel with expansion beyond Chicago, and in terms of the service story we tell consumers and (the room-package emphasis), The RoomPlace really solidifies that proposition to our customers,” said Sondra Wellmerling, vice president of marketing.
“What attracted us to Indianapolis was its combination of big-city amenities in a family-friendly environment,” said Bruce Berman, CEO of the Lombard, Ill.-based retailer. “It was the perfect fit for the store’s wide breadth of styles and customer-centric approach to furniture.”
In a release, The RoomPlace said Indianapolis is in an exciting period of change.
“The whole market is really being reenergized and revitalized, and it’s on a strong growth path in terms housing starts and population,” Wellmerling said.
The retailer said it offers consumers a showroom of complete rooms, including accessories, put together by professional designers so the customer doesn’t have to worry about pieces coordinating. In the spirit of room package giant Rooms To Go, it notes a business philosophy of “The more you buy, the more you save.”
Recent key suppliers have included Lifestyle Enterprise, New Generations and Simmons.
The company would not disclose its projected sales for Indianapolis, or its investment.
The midpriced RoomPlace is No. 43 on Furniture/Today’s survey of Top 100 U.S. furniture stores with estimated sales last year of $191.2 million, up 2.9% from the year before. Berman has said he expects the chain to do about $250 million this year.
Asked if more stores are planned for Indianapolis, Wellmerling said, “Potentially.” She said the market can probably support a third store, but the company has not made any commitments.
As for other markets outside Chicago, she said the RoomPlace is “aggressively evaluating real estate opportunities” but has nothing to report.
Harlem’s growth strategy took it out of greater Chicagoland for the first time early this year with the move into Mishawaka, which is near South Bend and about 125 miles from Chicago.
Indianapolis is about a three-hour drive southeast from Chicago.
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