City aims to double sales
4 big stores planned in next two years
By Clint Engel -- Furniture Today, December 24, 2001
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — With its new 660,000-square-foot warehouse, showroom and headquarters complex, City Furniture is poised for a major growth spurt, including four big stores over the next two years and a vigorous push into the home office and patio furniture categories.
"We're hoping to double our business over the next several years, and the new facility should be able to handle that," said Keith Koenig, president of the 13-store Top 100 company, which is on track to generate sales of more than $190 million this year.
The new facility gives City the capacity to enter the patio and home office segments full steam, with an eye to becoming the dominant player in South Florida in both.
In 6,000 square feet across most of one wall on the mezzanine of the new complex's store, City is showing its new patio collection — some 90 sets, with tables and four chairs starting at $299 and topping out at about $699.
Casual Living, Foremost, Compex and Pride are the four largest suppliers in the category, with about half the mix from Casual Living. City felt the need to be very important to one vendor, Koenig said.
"There's a real good market for good-quality, good-value patio furniture," he said. "To me there's no reason why patio shouldn't be a core component of most furniture stores. The material handling is the same. All the logistics are the same. Consumer needs are really the same."
Koenig believes the main reason the category isn't part of more mainstream furniture stores is because outdoor furniture resources exhibit primarily in Chicago and don't attract most of the buyers who shop primarily in High Point.
For City, outdoor furniture sales already are off to a good start, he said, adding that while he expected the bulk of sales to come from the low end, a couple of $499 sets "are outpacing my expectations and leading the pack."
In home office, the new store dedicates about 3,000 square feet on the upper level to a full presentation. The bulk of the goods comes from Palliser and Global, the latter providing the more commercial quality and looks that City is counting on to attract owners and operators of small offices, such as law and real estate brokerage firms.
The store also carries a modest assortment of ready-to-assemble home office from Sauder, and other desks and related merchandise from Thornwood and Bassett.
"We aim to be the dominant seller of office furniture in South Florida," Koenig said. "We're going toe-to-toe with Office Depot in terms of pricing, especially on office chairs. They have a $29 task chair; we have a better $29 task chair with gas lift. They have a $69 black leather office chair; we've got a better $69 black leather office chair with gas lift, and it's cowhide, not pigskin."
City has rolled out both categories to all stores, although "we haven't got our merchandising completely nailed down yet," Koenig said.
In addition to the dedicated home office area in stores, Koenig said City is mixing home office wherever possible into its furniture collections — the way most of its assortment is displayed — "because we believe our customers would very much like home office to fit into the rest of their living environment."
"That's why we've worked with our suppliers to match finishes to our best-selling groups," he said.
The four large stores on the drawing boards for the next two years comprise two in Dade County in the Miami area, and one each in Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach County.
Two of the stores will replace smaller City units. The first, with a 56,000-square-foot showroom, will be under construction shortly in Fort Lauderdale, and is expected to open in August or September. It will replace a 10,000-square-foot unit in the same market.
Koenig said the company is still negotiating on properties for the other stores and couldn't provide details. He did note they would average about 65,000 square feet, showing the retailer's full breadth of goods. It likely will be 2003 before the stores open, he said.
| City Furniture's new 660,000-square-foot building near Fort Lauderdale combines a store, a distribution center and headquarters' offices. |
| A beach mural sets the stage for the retailer's new patio collection, which includes this Teresina aluminum group in Pinehurst green from Casual Living. |
| The sprawling, 540,000-square-foot distribution center will be the backbone of City Furniture's growth strategy. |
| City Café is a 200-seat, full-service restaurant open to employees and consumers. |
| ABOVE: This view from the store's mezzanine shows City Furniture's use of Florida street scenes and landscapes as decorative elements. |
| ABOVE: A traditional grouping of dining room, bedroom and home entertainment furniture from Pulaski, leather upholstery from Soft Line and a Grand Renaissance coffee table from Universal form the foundation of a collection off the entrance of City Furniture's new store. |
| RIGHT: A pine corner workstation from Palliser is part of City's Furniture's 3,000-square-foot home office display at its Sawgrass Center store, part of its huge new store/distribution center/office complex in Tamarac, Fla. |
