Total renovation for local furniture store.
Cannabis with a catch. Retailer has some work to do before opening.
Welcome the “Lunch Break” email from the editors of Saratoga Dispatch.
Read through out top story, brought to you by the Saratoga County Chamber, and below, we have news from the Saratoga Springs Planning Commission. Find out the latest on a proposed cannabis dispensary.
This exciting Positively Saratoga news is brought to you by our friends at the Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce.
By Abby Tegnelia
Raymour & Flanigan Furniture sells stunning furniture via an impressive fleet of 150 locations across the northeast. The one with the sleekest new showroom as of today? The Saratoga store on Ballston Avenue, which just celebrated the completion of its enormous reno project.
“We did a full store remodel,” says the location’s store manager of three years, John Palmeri. “We tore down lots of walls and were able to add 10,000 square feet. Now 90 percent of our half-walls are new, designed to be accessorized with bookshelves, artwork, china cabinets or mirrors. So it looks like you’re actually in a room and you can envision what the furniture will look like in your own home.”
To create this homey feel in a 45,000-square-feet showroom, the company employs interior designers called “visual merchandisers” who style the space around new furniture collections — using lamps, framed pieces of art, wall-mounted cabinet pieces and shelving to break down the expansive space into little cozy little moments.
And in case you think that a company that boasts locations as far south as Delaware, and across Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Connecticut couldn’t feel “local,” stop in and see for yourself.
“Everybody who works in this building is local,” says Palmeri, who’s been with the company for five years. “Our headquarters are in Syracuse where the company started, so we are an Upstate New York company through and through. I live in the community, we take pride in the community, and we’re community focused. I love it in Saratoga.”
The Saratoga location is one of two Taft Furniture locations that Raymour took over as part of its acquisition, the other one being on Central Avenue in Albany. Beginning December 9 of last year, the extensive Saratoga renovations happened in seven phases, during which the store remained open — with builders often working through the night, and other times finishing projects behind a complicated system of tarps.
“Every time we started a phase, we had to clear out all the furniture from that phase, and then do that four-week remodel,” Palmeri says. “And then before we moved on to the next phase, we'd have to clear out that whole phase and then backfill what was just completed. It was basically like moving about 10 houses’ worth of furniture every time.
“But we didn’t miss a single hour of business.”
The final product — including a shiny new state-of-the-art mattress gallery, new carpeting and a $250,000 new lighting system to better showcase the furniture — was fittingly revealed on the celebratory Fourth of July, and made official Wednesday with the Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce.
“It's not every day that a Raymour gets renovated — this is the first renovation in the Capital Region since I've been with the company,” Palmeri says. “And our sleep center is by far the best sleep center you’ll find anywhere. Sometimes customers forget that we are also their mattress retailer — we’re the No. 1 retailer of Beautyrest Black in the country.
“This will be like the most modern Raymour in the area for quite awhile.”
Positively Saratoga stories are commissioned by the Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce.
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