FORT WAYNE, Ind.--Oct. 28--A Richmond, Va.-based company out to become the nation's largest furniture retailer plans to open a store at Southgate Plaza.
Heilig-Meyers Co. is scheduled Friday to start remodeling about 24,000 square feet of space formerly occupied by a J.J. Newberry Co. variety store at the shopping center.
The publicly held furniture store chain is a "good, solid, strong, New York Stock Exchange tenant," said Jack B. Kellams, whose Kellams Enterprises owns Southgate Plaza.
The chain's commitment to a 10-year lease with two five-year options underscores the center's health and consumer demand for retailing on the south side of Fort Wayne, he said. Terms were not disclosed.
The Newberry store next to Blockbuster Video at the shopping center closed in September. Other local Newberry store managers said it was twice the size of a typical outlet in the chain, but didn't offer a broader array of merchandise and didn't attract enough business to justify its overhead.
Heilig is a 56-year-old company with 12,500 employees and annual sales of $956 million from about 760 stores in 26 states.
Heilig recently announced plans to acquire the Rhodes furniture store chain, which would expand it to more than 800 stores and increase annual sales to more than $1.5 billion.
Both chains have middle-income customer bases. Heilig has established most of its stores in smaller markets, and Rhodes has focused on metro areas.
Heilig managers could not be reached for comment. Its lease agreements leave all but 2 percent of the space at Southgate Plaza occupied or spoken for, Kellams said. The center has 50 tenants.
In addition to Heilig and Blockbuster, major tenants include Kroger Co., a Walgreens drugstore, True Value Hardware, Radio Shack, NBD Bank, Fort Wayne National Bank, Big Lots, H&R Block, GTE North, Belmont Beverage Stores, and Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles License Branch.
Kroger plans to begin an expansion in a couple of months that will increase its size to 61,700 square feet from 45,500 square feet. The expansion is scheduled for completion in August 1997.
The supermarket will occupy more than 10,000 square feet Walgreens vacated this summer when it relocated to a free-standing store on the north side of Southgate Plaza. The store is on Pettit Avenue between Clinton and Calhoun streets.
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(c) 1996, The (Fort Wayne, Ind.) News-Sentinel. Distributed by Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News.
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