BC Home Furniture Gallery and Rockaway Bedding closing
By:Audrey Levine
Despite recent efforts to make Hillsborough more business friendly, two local furniture stores are closing in the next few months.
BC Home Furniture Gallery and Rockaway Bedding, both located in the Hillsborough Promenade on Route 206, are now preparing to vacate their buildings.
According to Gene Strupinsky, township business advocate, Rockaway Bedding recently filed for bankruptcy and its properties have been acquired by Sleepy’s Inc. The sale is expected to be completed in the next few weeks.
A Rockaway Bedding manager declined to comment on the closing.
BC Home Furniture Gallery has been struggling for years, Mr. Strupinsky said, and that’s why it’s leaving the Hillsborough Promenade.
Paul Librach, owner of BC Home Furniture Gallery, said he expects the store will close its doors within three months. He said he is looking to open a new location on Route 22.
Mr. Librach said he was not pleased with the support given to his store by the township. He cited restrictions in the exterior decorating as an example of the issues he faced when opening his store in 2005.
"They are terrible when it comes to advertising," he said. "The problem is the township seems anti-business."
According to Mr. Strupinsky, however, the township has encouraged stores to improve their advertising by investing in bigger directory signs to inform passersby of the available shops. He said an ordinance passed by the Township Committee in March encourages the building of the bigger directories.
The ordinance allows the signs to be up to 20 square feet and 6 feet high. The signs are expected to include the names of all the tenants in the center.
"We encourage this to bring more attention to the centers," Mr. Strupinsky said.
Mr. Strupinsky said another method of publicizing the different stores could be to place photos or schematics of the shopping centers online, with links to the official Web sites and any available coupons.
Mr. Librach said another downfall for his store is the cyclical nature of the furniture industry itself. He said that, as the real estate business declined, furniture followed suit.
Mr. Strupinsky agreed.
"The furniture industry has been struggling," Mr. Strupinsky said. "With many stores, instead of seeing where they are needed, they say that if the other store can succeed there, I can too."
Mr. Strupinsky said this kind of situation is common among retailers that open up a plethora of different locations. Basically, he said, the market becomes overcrowded.
Despite the closures, Mr. Strupinsky said the Hillsborough Promenade which was built in 2000 and houses about 20 stores and restaurants has remained fairly stable over the years, with most of the stores staying in place for extended periods of time. He said the newest store opened in summer 2006, but the most changes occur among shops other than the Promenade’s anchor stores, Pathmark, Kohl’s and Lowe’s.
"The strip of smaller stores has had the most turnover," he said. "But that’s typical of the shopping centers."
For the most part, however, Mr. Strupinsky said that Hillsborough Promenade and Triangle Center, on Triangle Road, enjoy the most business because they are the best known in the town. He said the shopping centers could all be helped by more publicity for the centers themselves, rather than for just the individual stores.
"We encourage stores to make use of the name of the shopping center," he said. "We would like to promote everything inside."
Mr. Strupinsky said some ways to make the shopping center itself more visible would be to host outdoor events for guests, or create joint sales among the different shops.
In addition to working with the current stores and centers, Mr. Strupinsky said the creation of the Town Center should be positive for retailers, as residents are encouraged to walk around the area and see the different opportunities available to them.
"Hopefully retail will benefit," he said. "There is more competition now and we’d like to see more diverse retail opportunities."