In bittersweet move, Triangle is closing its generations-old retail art supplies business to concentrate on commercial digital printing
By: Lauren Otis
On one level, it is the end of an era. After 67 years, artists, art students and other craftspeople will not be able to walk into a Triangle art supplies store for their pens, paints, paper and other needs.
Joseph P. Teti, president and CEO of Triangle, and son of the store’s founder, has announced that Triangle’s retail store in Lawrence will close in early December, and the site will be sold.
A stagnant market for art supplies, yet one flooded with suppliers, coupled with a "once in a lifetime" offer to acquire the Lawrence site, were behind the decision, Mr. Teti said.
"It’s been a wonderful business," Mr. Teti said, but "honestly the strict art supplies market is not growing, it is shrinking."
Despite the bittersweet nature of leaving the retail art supply business, Mr. Teti characterized the change as, on another level, the beginning of a new era where Triangle will be able to focus completely on its thriving core business of supplying professional document management and digital printing services.
This business accounted for 80 percent of Triangle’s business, or about $8 million a year in revenues, as opposed to the art supply business which accounted for only 20 percent of Triangle’s business, or approximately $2 million annually, Mr. Teti said.
Triangle’s four retail locations serving the document and digital printing business in Lawrence, Pennington and South Brunswick on Route 1 will all remain open, Mr. Teti said, and 11 Triangle franchise operations offering document and digital printing services throughout the state will also be unaffected.
Triangle’s closing of its retail art supply operation "has no effect on the franchises whatsoever," said William Howard, CEO of the Triangle Princeton franchise on Nassau Street. Mr. Howard said he was unconcerned that the shift at Triangle would have any effect on its work supporting franchises like his with digital production work. "It is really a non-question," he said.
Mr. Howard did note that there may be some misinformation circulating regarding Triangle, which may be encouraged by competitors. "We’ve already had two customers who had a competitor come in to tell them the whole Triangle operation was closing," he said. "They stopped by because they couldn’t believe it, and we assured them that was bull," he said, adding, "I’m sure there’s going to be a lot of that."
The art supplies business has always been ancillary to Triangle’s other offerings, Mr. Teti noted. When his father, the late Joseph L. Teti, founded Triangle in Trenton in 1939, he primarily produced architectural drawings, or blueprints, for clients while also selling them art supplies on the side. In 1969 Triangle moved to Lawrence and entered the retail art supplies business in earnest, he said.
There was a symbiosis between Triangle’s two lines of business then, with professional clients also purchasing art supplies, which has not continued, Mr. Teti said. "There used to be a 60 to 70 percent overlap, if it is 10 or 15 percent now I’d be surprised," he added.
A number of different factors, rather than any single one, contributed to the decline in Triangle’s retail art supplies operation, Mr. Teti said. "The supply business has not had a precipitous drop, it is little by little by little," he said.
"The biggest single change was the graphics computer. People used to do all that (graphics and design work) by hand," he said. Triangle tried to shift its art supplies focus, integrating children’s art camps and craft supplies into its business. "It worked for a while, the children’s art camps are still a popular program," Mr. Teti said. "We may have replaced the revenue, but the margins are not what they are for the supply business," he noted.
The shrinking market for art supplies coupled with a wide choice of retailers, from large national stores to the Internet cut into Triangle’s business. "When you analyze it, it just didn’t make sense to continue it," Mr. Teti said.
Add to this the serendipity of receiving an offer to purchase the Triangle retail store at Darrah Lane and Alternate Route 1 out of the blue for what he characterizes as "an above market rate," and the decision was sealed, Mr. Teti said.
Mr. Teti said the deal for the 24,000-square-foot commercial space on 2.2 acres should be completed within a month. Until the deal is signed he said he didn’t want to identify the purchaser other than to say "it’s a national retailer, it’s a familiar name."
Triangle’s company headquarters has already relocated to its 3175 Princeton Pike location, at the old Princeton University Press building, Mr. Teti said, and Triangle houses a major digital print production hub there, too.
The changes at Triangle, while significant, should have no impact at all on its digital print and other professional customers, whose business is "on the upswing" and who Triangle will be able to concentrate on exclusively going forward, Mr. Teti said.

