Curtis Corporate Park Provides La-Z-Boy With The Headroom It Needs To Grow

By Kaaren Valenta

This weekend, September 27–28, the La-Z-Boy Furniture Galleries will hold the first semiannual warehouse sale in its new location in the Curtis Corporate Park off Toddy Hill Road in Sandy Hook.

Besides finding bargains in living room and family room furniture, tables, lamps and other accessories, shoppers will have an opportunity to see the 30,000-square-foot distribution center and corporate offices built by La-Z-Boy, which is the first occupant of the new industrial park.

Tom Greene, who owns four La-Z-Boy furniture galleries in Connecticut, said he started looking about a year ago for a place to consolidate the corporate offices and warehouse and decided that the location near Exit 11 was ideal.

“We were outgrowing all of our facilities,” he explained. “The corporate offices were located below our old store [in Brookfield] and we had warehouses in three separate locations. It made sense to consolidate. We decided this was the best location because of its access to major roads, and [because] most of our employees also live in this area.”

“We got together with Curtis Packaging and [Curtis Packaging President] Dan Droppo and worked out the details,” Mr Greene said. “We are on a site that is about two and a half acres. The warehouse covers 27,000 square feet and there are 3,000 square feet of office space. We built the facility and we own it.”

The new facility provided enough space to bring together the 16–17 members of the corporate staff including the two general managers, John Freitas, sales, and David Peterson, operations, and includes room to grow.

“We expect to grow significantly over the next four to five years,” Mr Greene said.

A 1964 graduate of Middlebury College in Vermont, Mr Greene has been in the furniture industry for most of his career. He worked for Armstrong Floors, then for its Thomasville Furniture division, developing the company’s store gallery program. He left in the early 1980s to join Ethan Allen in Danbury, where he was vice president of sales and new store development.

In 1991, he decided it was time to own his own business. He approached Patrick Norton, former Ethan Allen president who had become senior vice president of sales and marketing at La-Z-Boy in 1981 –– and later chairman of the board –– and who is credited with building the company into the most recognized brand name in the industry.

Mr Greene started with La-Z-Boy by buying a small store in Waterbury. In 1993, he built a store on Federal Road in Brookfield across from Costco. He opened a store on the Post Road in Orange in 1995, and one near Clinton Crossings less than four years later. Two of the stores have since moved. The Waterbury store relocated into the newly rebuilt Naugatuck Valley Shopping Center in 2000; earlier this year the Brookfield store opened at a new location at 18 Federal Road on a hill behind Wendy’s restaurant, across from Stew Leonard’s.

“There are 350 La-Z-Boy stores across the country and all, for the most part, are independently owned,” Mr Greene explained. “About 30 of them are the new prototype stores including the one in Brookfield.

“La-Z-Boy covers the middle to upper middle price market,’ he said. “Chairs are less than 40 percent of our business. We sell rooms –– living rooms and family rooms, not bedrooms or dining rooms –– and provide design services.

The furniture is made by La-Z-Boy-owned companies such as Hammary and Kincaid in North Carolina. “Everything, excluding the accessories, is made by La-Z-Boy,” Mr Greene said. “We are the largest home furniture company in the world [with nearly a dozen subsidiaries such as Pennsylvania House] and the largest upholstered furniture company in the world.”

Furniture is delivered to the warehouse in Sandy Hook where it goes into a prep shop to be sure it is perfect before it is plastic wrapped, then blanket-wrapped for delivery by a local company, Braun Moving Inc, of Newtown, in La-Z-Boy trucks.

Furniture in storage at the warehouse is wrapped and placed on layers of metal racks that soar up to the 42-foot-high ceiling.

“We had to get a special exception from the town to build the warehouse that high,” Mr Greene said. “We needed to go high. We couldn’t do that in our other locations.”

Mr Greene said the decision was made to build the facility this year despite the uncertainty about the economy.

“It’s a great time to borrow money and make an investment in real estate,” he said.

He also said he believes the Curtis Corporate Park will be very successful.

“I think it will be a tremendous development when it is built out,” he said. “It is a great location.”

A resident of Ridgefield, Mr Green is married to Sharon Greene, a realtor for Caldwell Banker. Their son Todd, 26, is a graduate of the US Naval Academy and is a lieutenant, currently assigned to a PC [patrol coastal] ship stationed in Norwalk, Va.

This weekend’s warehouse sale will feature about 100 pieces of furniture, tables, and lamps at prices 30 to 50 percent off. Floor models, discontinued models, and overstock will be included. The sale will be held from 10 am to 6 pm on Saturday and noon to 5 pm on Sunday.

The La-Z-Boy warehouse is located on Turnberry Lane, the first right turn off Toddy Hill immediately past Curtis Packaging.