 Miskelly Adds Floor Space
Published May 17, 2004.
Reprinted with permission of The Clarion Ledger
By Arnold Lindsay
alindsay@clarionledger.com
MiskellyFurniture hopes its 43,000-square-foot expansion with extra offerings will take it from a mere store to a shopping destination.
A country store and activities for children are included in the expansion that opens June 9.
Those offerings could have people planning trips to the Pearl store, said Jackie Hirschhaut, a vice president of the American Furniture Manufacturers Association in High Point, N.C.
"It's going to be a stop on a road trip somebody's going to plan," Hirschhaut said.
By adding a Kid's World, complete with an antique carousel, a play area and a 300-book children's reading area, Hirschhaut said the store is trying to accommodate the busy lifestyles of families. A children's story time is also planned for Saturdays.
"There's no question that shopping for furniture isn't something that can be done as quickly as shopping for other products," she said. "Sometimes that makes a challenge for families to shop together. There have been a number of retailers who have tried to make the shopping experience as pleasant as it can be in order to enhance the shopping opportunity."
Creating such an atmosphere only solidifies Miskelly's standing in the marketplace, Hirschhaut said.
"When you put all these extras on, it's icing on the cake. And I would suspect that it's going to serve to further build their business and continue to cement their success as the dominant furniture retailer in the area," she said.
Chip Miskelly, president of MiskellyFurniture and one of three brothers who started the company in 1978, spent time traveling looking for ways to make Miskelly a destination store - someplace travelers and shoppers alike will set out to visit.
"One of the things we've always done is gone all around the country and looked at different stores, different ideas. And we've always tried to build on our business model," Miskelly said.
Miskelly would not say how much the expansion cost but said the store's 300-employee base will increase by 25 to 40 positions as a result. Entry-level wage for laborers, some of whom are teenagers working part time, is about $7 per hour, Miskelly said. Miskelly's primary customer base is within 150 miles of the store, he said.
The additions bring to 350,000 square feet the total space including the distribution center.
Furniture Today, a trade publication, in a May 24 report titled "Stores To Watch," estimated Miskelly's 2003 sales at $47.5 million, a 4.4 percent increase over 2002 estimates of $45.5 million.
Tom Troxler, executive vice president for the Rankin County Economic Development Authority, said the expansion is timely.
It falls in line with the $55 million Bloomfield development in Pearl that includes a Bass Pro Shop and a $25 million stadium for the Mississippi Braves, a Class AA affiliate of the Major League Atlanta Braves, he said.
The expanded Miskelly will also be the launching pad for a new line of Gail Pittman custom-made home accessories that include lamps and benches. "It's just another retail outlet for our product. We will immediately begin the marketing campaign to get the stuff into high-end furniture stores," said Mike Corso, vice president of sales and marketing for Gail Pittman. "And we will be adding new products as they do the dinnerware selection. There is so much demand for other products ... that incorporate Gail's design."
Daddy Skelly's Country Store will feature Mississippi-made Southern food fare, including ice cream, coffees, candies and jams. Even bottled soda will be served to enhance the rustic decorum.
Future expansions will feature things like a Home Theatre, Miskelly's Cafe and Sports Museum, with big screen televisions. Miskelly said the family will likely expand the Howard Miskelly store in the future by about 10,000 square feet. Other metro area expansions in recent months include Pearl River Trading Co., which doubled its retail space and tripled its inventory, and Haverty's, which moved to a new location on County Line Road in Jackson, to increase its operating space.
Hirschhaut said the expansions mirror the surge in the furniture industry. The first quarter of 2004 saw wood furniture shipments up by 6.4 percent and a rise of 7.4 percent for upholstered furniture.
"Basically, since 9-11 the furniture industry has been pretty flat. All the typical indicators suggest this should be a good time for furniture sales ... we're cautiously optimistic this is the first sign of the recovery," Hirschhaut said.
The recent surges in the sale of homes should also bode well for the industry that saw consumers spend $71.6 billion in 2003 on furniture and bedding, Hirschhaut said. "It's a very sizable industry," she said.
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