Ashley/Konto closure not a sign of hard times: owner
Murray Lyons, The StarPhoenix
Published: Thursday, August 30, 2007
The owner of a large downtown furniture store says Ashley Furniture Home Store did well in the Saskatoon market even though it is closing this month, less than two years after opening.
Giant, yellow close-out sale posters appeared on the building's windows earlier this week, and the company bought a full-page ad in The StarPhoenix Wednesday to announce the closing sale and that the building was being converted to office space.
"Opportunities and seasons change," said owner Brian Bird, saying speculation that Ashley's concept in furniture retailing hadn't worked was "absolutely not true."
The Ashley/Konto combination is supposed to be closed by the end of September so renovations can be made at a building originally known as Bayside to accommodate the office tenants.
"It's a positive move. It's not a negative move," Bird said Wednesday. "We are absolutely not in any financial trouble, nor have we ever been."
Bird says the two-storey retail space he bought and renovated in 2005 to house Ashley and his much longer-established Konto Furniture store can be put to more productive and profitable use as offices. He said a deal has been signed to lease both the street level main floor along First Avenue as well as the second floor.
"I cannot release who the tenants are because I am under confidentiality agreements," Bird said Wednesday. "I have two 'triple A' tenants. One is a government tenant and they are taking the entire second floor.
"One is a very large corporation and they are taking the entire main floor. The building is fully leased and there will be 180 employees working here."
Bird says Ashley, a U.S. company that manufactures furniture and runs an extensive retail network in the U.S., would likely want to continue immediately in another location in the Saskatoon market if there is suitable space.
He says Ashley is the No. 1 brand in North America and is willing to pay higher market rates to be in the best retail locations. He says the brand and the type of furniture sold by Ashley found a receptive market here.
"It will definitely, definitely relaunch in Saskatoon," he said. "There is absolutely no doubt about it. It's a matter of time now."
However, Bird would not say categorically he would relaunch the Ashley brand in Saskatoon, saying that would depend on what kind of retail space comes open in the future and how much he would have to pay for it.
"From Ashley's perspective, would they like me to relaunch? Without a doubt," Bird said. "Do I run a very clean, good store for them? Yes, there is no question of that."
Bird says the closure of the Ashley/Konto location does not affect his ownership of the Palliser Rooms store that he also owns. In addition, Bird says he has a separate furniture warehouse distribution centre
"That will stay in operation and that's where all the servicing is done," he said.
The building Bird is converting to offices was built in the mid-1980s as a companion shopping centre to the adjacent Bay department store. For the next 15 years, what was called Bayside was occupied by more than a dozen higher-end retailers, mostly locally owned companies.
Those retailers began leaving one by one to other spots downtown in the early part of this decade after the Hudson Bay Company moved the Bay department store to the former Eaton's space at Midtown Plaza. After the retailers left, the Bayside building was purchased by the former Heinze Institute of Technology, which turned the building into a campus for its various computer courses. However, the Bayside site turned out to be too much building for the private college and Bird bought the building after the Heinze Institute closed.
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..cant help but fear this project will go nowhere like tower 21 and that retail development on 8th and broadway
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