LEESBURG, Va. -- Wolf Furniture grand opened its 46,000-square-foot store here during Labor Day, stepping up in price points for the affluent area and becoming the first retailer to introduce the HGTV Home collection.
The store on Fort Evans Road has generated strong traffic and business, said Gene Stoltz, vice president of merchandising for the Top 100 company.
It represents a number of firsts for Bellwood, Pa.-based Wolf. It's the retailer's first store in Virginia and 13th overall, including a clearance center. It features an updated merchandise mix, including the HGTV Home line by Bassett. And it represents the first time Wolf has handed over delivery responsibilities to a third-party company, Cory Home Delivery.
Wolf has invested more than $12 million in the project, which took more than five years to come to fruition after governmental tie ups nearly led the retailer to abandon its store plans and sell the property, said Wolf President Doug Wolf.
But in the end, the company built a dramatic new store, one Stoltz called "gorgeous," and "our best effort that we've ever put forward."
At less than 50,000 square feet, the Leesburg store is the smallest Wolf has ever opened in a new, non-fill-in market. But that doesn't mean the company isn't expecting big things here. Wolf projected the store will do in excess of $10 million in annual sales and lead all Wolf stores in sales per square foot.
Roughly 35% of the assortment is either new from existing sources or from new suppliers to Wolf, and most of it is at step-up price points. For instance, the retailer expanded its selection of Amish-made furniture, adding Urban Collections and more goods from Daniels Amish and Palettes by Winesberg, Stoltz said.
It also has added Lexington Home Brands, Bernhardt, A.R.T. Furniture, Rachlin Classics and, after a two-store, nine-month test, Thomasville.
Wolf already is rolling out some of the new lines to other stores, including Bernhardt and Rachlin, Stoltz said. Further rollout of some others will depend on the success rate here and whether the product fits Wolf's target consumer in other markets such as Frederick, Md., and Johnstown, Pa.
"You can't use the initial reaction for setting a long-term strategy," Stoltz said, "but there has been great acceptance to all the better-end goods."
While Wolf has always handled its own deliveries, he said the company went with Cory in Leesburg because the move will enable it "to increase our capacity without a whole lot of new distribution costs for us."
Wolf will ship goods from its existing Bellwood, Pa., distribution center to a cross dock facility in the Baltimore area and Cory will take over home delivery from there.
Wolf is No. 65 on Furniture/Today's Top 100 with estimated furniture, bedding and accessories sales of $84.6 million in 2011.
For a longer story on the grand opening and Wolf's strategy, see the Sept. 24 print issue of Furniture/Today.