Daily News Archive
Brought to you by Home Furnishings Business
August 23,
2006 by in UnCategorized 
By Home Furnishings Business in Furniture Retailing on August 2006
HOM Furniture has opened a showroom adjacent to its Plymouth, Minn., store dubbed World Rugs that sells direct import rugs
The store, which boasts more than 3,000 rugs on display, features 17,000 square feet of retail space. World Rugs also has an additional 7,000 rugs in an attached warehouse.
In addition to the new free-standing showroom, HOM is rolling out expanded and remodeled World Rugs departments in all of its area stores.
World Rugs features a variety of styles including traditional hand-knotted Orientals and Persians and cutting-edge contemporary looks, as well as exclusive one-of-a-kind designs.
August 22,
2006 by in UnCategorized
By Home Furnishings Business in Las Vegas on August 2006
Case goods, leather upholstery and bedding vendor Emerald Home Furnishings leased a permanent 16,800-square-foot showroom on the 13th floor of World Market Center’s second building, Building B. Emerald will complete work on the new showroom in time for the January 2007 Las Vegas Market.
The company also has showrooms in Tacoma, Wash., High Point, N.C. and Shanghai, China.
“We are really looking forward to having a permanent showroom at World Market Center that will be a destination during Las Vegas Market and used from time to time throughout the year,” said President David Beckmann in a release announcing the showroom.
The company also has showrooms in Tacoma, Wash., High Point, N.C., and Shanghai, China.
“With the continued growth at Emerald Home Furnishings, we decided to take the next step and open the Las Vegas showroom and we are eagerly anticipating the January Las Vegas Market,” Beckmann said.
Babs Blair, director of leasing at World Market Center, said WMC has been talking with Emerald for several years, and that the company was waiting on the right showroom space.
“Emerald has been a leader in the dining room and occasional table category for several years and will be a real asset to our growing mix of exceptional tenants,” she said.
August 22,
2006 by in UnCategorized
By Home Furnishings Business in Furniture Retailing on August 2006
Joan Ferman has been named the new president of retail at custom upholstery manufacturer and retail network Norwalk Furniture. She succeeds Bill Gerken, who becomes vice chairman of the company.
“With her unique retail vision and understanding of the changing, sophisticated home fashion customer, we couldn’t be more excited to bring her to Norwalk,” said Jim Gerken, president and CEO of Norwalk, Ohio-based Norwalk Furniture.
Ferman’s retail experience includes merchandising and management, most recently operating a wine and spirits store in her native Wisconsin since 1999, after two years of serving as a divisional merchandising manager of gourmet food and wine for World Market, where she was responsible for sourcing goods from around the world for the company’s 117 stores.
She began her career as a sales associate at Workbench’s Cleveland franchise, working her way to to vice president of operations within five years; Workbench evolved into Arhaus, where Ferman remained for 12 more years, eventually becoming president.
“She will play an instrumental role in how we decide to differentiate Norwalk from other home fashion retailers,” says Gerken.
Ferman attended the University of Wisconsin, and the University of Bridgewater in Boston, Mass. She and her family are in the process of relocating to Northeast Ohio.
August 22,
2006 by in UnCategorized
By Home Furnishings Business in Furniture Retailing on August 2006
For the second time this year, Nasdaq has threatened San Francisco-based retailer Design Within Reach with potential de-listing of the company’s securities for failure to file quarterly reports on a timely basis.
DWR has requested a hearing before a Nasdaq listing qualifications panel to review the Nasdaq staff determination and request continued listing on Nasdaq Global Market until the retailer files its quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended July 1, 2006. In its determination letter, Nasdaq staff informed DWR that this request will result in a postponement of the delisting pending the panel’s decision, but provided no assurance that the Panel will grant its request for continued listing.
DWR had announced earlier this month that turnover in financial management and weak internal controls on reporting had delayed the second-quarter filing.
In addition, the Design Within Reach announced that Ken La Honta has officially resigned from the company, effective August 16. Earlier, the company had announced La Honta’s departure would be effective on the filing of the 10-Q for the second quarter of 2006 or Sept. 1, whichever came first.
August 21,
2006 by in UnCategorized
By Home Furnishings Business in High Point on August 2006
The High Point Market Authority announced yesterday that it has formed a hotel task force to provide strategic advice, feedback, overview and recommendations from the hospitality industry to the Market Authority staff, executive committee and board.
The group recently held its first meeting.
“The hotel task force will review current issues among Market attendees, as well as offer ideas on how the authority can improve the housing situation around the bi-annual High Point Market and its working relationship with hoteliers,” said Brian Casey, president of the High Point Market Authority. “I wanted to establish a forum where we could have dialog around the issues and what we can all do to make things better for everybody involved.”
Casey sought a diverse group of hotel properties in terms of size and location, as well as representation from the Piedmont Triad area’s convention and visitors bureaus (CVBs), when seeking participants for the task force.
Hotel Task Force members include: Chris Adams, representing Ashford Suites; Mo Milani, Sheraton Hotel; Joe Varipapa, Comfort Suites Airport; John Rothkopf, Airport Marriott; Pamela Vargas, Marriott Downtown Greensboro; Tim Peters, Embassy Suites; Joe Tarasaria, Holiday Inn Express; Paulette Seaton, Hilton Garden Inn; Ron Stephens, Twin City Quarter; Henri Fourrier, Greensboro CVB; and Charlotte Young, High Point CVB.
Vargas was nominated to chair the group at the first meeting, where topics of discussion included the sharing of information and historical data between the Authority and the hoteliers, the development of best practices related to customer experience, and plans for the Market Authority to secure blocks of rooms with select hotels that the Authority would then make available to Market-goers.
“This is not intended to be a discussion about costs and rates; we can’t legally sit in a room and talk about those factors,” Casey said. “Rather, the whole premise behind this is to set that aside and focus the discussion on what we can be doing as a community to make the overall Market experience for our attendees as positive as possible. Nonetheless, we hope to take away some ideas that we can use to formulate strategies to more effectively deal with the rate issue as we move forward.”