Raymour to invest $46M in new DC

Clint Engel -- Furniture Today, June 25, 2012

LIVERPOOL, N.Y. - Raymour & Flanigan will invest about $46 million to purchase and renovate an 839,000-square-foot facility for a new distribution center in New York's Rockland County.
     New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced the relocation plan last week, saying the new facility is expected to create 300 jobs and more than $135 million in wages for local employees over 10 years.
     The Liverpool, N.Y.-based Top 100 furniture store is getting $2.3 million in tax credits from the Empire State Development and "a package of financial assistance incentives" from the Rockland County development agency, according to a release. The company said it expects to invest $46 million to purchase and improve a former Dress Barn facility in the Village of Montibello for a regional warehouse serving stores in metro New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.
     When the new center is up and running this fall, Raymour said it plans to close a 90,000-square-foot service center it operates in Oakland, N.J., which employs 79 people, shifting the jobs into the new facility.
     "New York State and Rockland IDA provided key guidance that we needed to make a good relocation decision to accommodate our continued growth," Raymour President and CEO Neil Goldberg said in a release.
     "The size and location of the new Rockland-based facility will afford us the ability to increase our operational efficiency while satisfying our current need for additional capacity in the New York metropolitan area," he said.
     Raymour & Flanigan is No. 6 on Furniture/Today's Top 100 with estimated 2011 sales of $1.01 billion at 99 stores and clearance centers in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island.