Crowd welcomes Regency Furniture's sixth store

70,000-square-foot unit opens in Fredericksburg, Va.

Clint Engel -- Furniture Today, April 14, 2010

FREDERICKSBURG, Va. — Promotional to midpriced Regency Furniture has soft opened its sixth store here, a 70,000-square-foot showroom on Salem Church Road.

Regency Furniture of Brandywine, Md., drew a crowd to the grand opening of its 70,000-square-foot Fredericksburg, Va., Saturday. It is the retailer’s sixth store in greater Washington, D.C., and surrounding markets.

At the ribbon cutting for Regency Furniture’s new Fredericksburg, Va., showroom are Veronica Devine, left, Mark Stuart, Ibrahim Ayyad, Mustafa Ayyad and Abdul Ayyad, all of Regency; local government official Gary Skinner; and Mohammed Hassan, Regency.

It's the first of two stores the retailer expects to open this year.

Mark Stuart, president of Brandywine, Md.-based Regency, said the Fredericksburg store, with easy access from Interstate 95, is an "excellent location" that is near the Central Park shopping district. It's part of a furniture row that includes The RoomsStore, Value City, and Ashley Furniture HomeStores.

Stuart said the family-owned Regency "got a great deal" in purchasing the property, a former grocery store building. He wouldn't disclose the investment or projected sales.

While business conditions remain challenging, they are improving, he said. "We're positioning ourselves to be stronger in the market," as it comes back, he added.

Stuart said Regency will open a 55,000-square-foot showroom in Alexandria, Va., next month when it takes over a lease in a former shopping center complex on Little River Turnpike.

Its other stores are located in Brandywine, Largo and Langley Park, Md., and Fairfax and Woodbridge, Va., where it operates a clearance center. The largest is its 120,000-square-foot showroom in Brandywine, part of its headquarters facility that also includes a 750,000-square-foot distribution center.

The Fredericksburg store grand opened Saturday to a crowd that Stuart said exceeded expectations. Regency lured consumers with refreshments, live music, face painting and other activities for kids, and the No. 20 Nascar show car, driven by Joey Logano and part of the Joe Gibbs race team. Consumers also registered for a $25,000 furniture giveaway.

The promotional to midpriced store offers a broad assortment from Regency's key suppliers, including Ashley, Najarian, Simmons Upholstery, Universal, AICO, World Imports, Homelegance, Home Line, American Eagle, Fusion, Jackson and Serta.

Stuart said the new location provides "an excellent fit" for Regency's product lines and added that the store features more urban contemporary looks than are usually found in that market, and well as strong traditional looks.

"Our business strategy is to ... show a breadth of product with a large showroom and offer the best price we can to customers," he said. Sofa prices range from $399 to $999.

Regency, which opened its first store in Fairfax in 1999, is owned by Abdul Ayyad.