Longtime furniture retailers closing
Kacey, Klingman's/Israels plan sales
Furniture Today Staff -- Furniture Today, November 24, 2010
DENVER - Longtime retailers Kacey Fine Furniture in Colorado and Klingman's/Israels Design for Living in Grand Rapids, Mich., have announced they're closing.
Three-store Kacey said it would end 45 years of retailing in Colorado with closing sales that were scheduled to begin last week.
According to a story in the Summit Daily News here, owner Sam Fishbein blamed the soft economy and the "dismal" housing market. "I wanted to do this now while we still had the financial ability to take care of our customers and employees," he said.
On its website, Kacey said it would hold what it described as a "$10 million final store closure sale" at its Denver, Frisco and Littleton, Colo., locations. Sales are expected to last through November or early December.
Leslie Fishbein, Sam's wife, had been a leader of the company and a well known figure in U.S. furniture retailing until her death in March 2008 after suffering a severe reaction to an injection for chronic back pain.
In Grand Rapids, Klingman's Furniture and Israels Designs for Living, both owned by Robert Israels, are being forced by lenders to hold going-out-of-business sales, the Grand Rapids Press reported.
But Israels said he may open a smaller-scale retail business with help from outside, non-bank investors if the liquidation raises enough money to repay loans of $6 million to Macatawa Bank and $8 million to Fifth Third Bank.
He said Fifth Third was forcing the shutdown of the two high-end stores. The John Widdicomb Trade Center, a design showroom started by Israels, will not be affected by the sale, although its inventory will be liquidated through Klingman's and Israels Designs for Living.
The two retailers, with a combined 171 years in business, fell into financial difficulty earlier this year when Macatawa demanded repayment of the interest-only loan. Israels said then that the short-term loan was to have been converted into a long-term mortgage, but that the bank's troubles and the weak economy led the lender to decide against the conversion.
Israels, who was told he's being removed from the companies, said he expects current inventory, along with product brought in for the sale, to sell for enough to pay off the loans.
He told the Press that the "real issue here is we have a serious problem with the economy and the banking business. If you can't have a credit line, you can't be in business."
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