54.3 F
San Diego
Tuesday, Mar 19, 2024
-Advertisement-

Pirch Expanding to Chicago, Dallas Area

San Diego-based Pirch is raising its national profile as it opens news stores and competes in the hyper-competitive home improvement retail industry.

The privately held company, known for its showrooms with live demonstrations of upscale home furnishings and fixtures, recently opened its newest store in Chicago — its fifth location overall and the first outside Southern California.

A Dallas opening is planned for this summer, to be followed next by a store in Atlanta. The company is scouting sites for further national expansion.

“Our company was born from empathy and frustration,” said co-founder and CEO Jeffery Sears, in a statement related to the opening of its 30,000-square-foot store at Oakbrook Center in suburban Chicago.

“We asked, ‘How is it that the very products adorning our homes and serving as backdrops to priceless memories are presented in such an appalling manner?’ “ Sears said. “So we decided to do something about that.”

The company — started in 2009 as Fixtures Living and renamed last year as Pirch, a variant on the word perch — has recently garnered attention from large national mall operators and made an impression on financers.

The company last year obtained a $60 million infusion from New York-based private equity firm Catterton Partners, which holds stakes in several other national companies including Restoration Hardware, Outback Steakhouse and P.F. Chang’s China Bistro.

Forbes magazine recently ranked Pirch, with $58 million in 2013 sales, at No. 32 on its 2014 list of “Most Promising Companies” — up from No. 78 in last year’s rankings.

Showing Customers How it Works

At a recent real estate forum in San Diego, presented by Cassidy Turley, Pirch co-founder Jim Stuart said the retailer has scoped out a niche by offering personalized customer service geared to lifestyle aspirations, featuring mostly upscale product brands and design variations not found in national chain home improvement stores.

The stores have multiple choices available for each type of fixture. Its customers are generally those willing to pay more for items that will ultimately be installed by contractors, although the stores also attract their share of do-it-yourselfers.

All of the appliances and fixtures on display — including bathroom, kitchen and outdoor-living furnishings — are hooked up to water and electricity. The customer can see, for instance, exactly how that showerhead sprays or how loud that toilet flushes.

The stores are also known for their frequent live demonstrations, with free food or cappuccino served during kitchen appliance demos.

The nation’s $143 billion home improvement sales industry has seen 2.2 percent annual growth over the past five years, with similar growth expected through 2019, research company IBISWorld Inc. recently reported.

Researchers said the more than 5,000 big and small stores nationwide, led by giants Home Depot and Lowe’s, saw expansion slow substantially from 2009 to 2011 after the subprime mortgage crisis caused a plunge in demand for home improvement products.

Rising home sales and consumer confidence have since encouraged households to make bigger purchases and undertake more improvement projects.

Working Well With Upscale Malls

A good amount of Pirch’s growing success, officials have said, can be attributed to strong relationships it has formed with some of the nation’s largest mall operators, including those seeking more tenants that attract upscale shoppers.

The stores with higher-end fare, catering to higher-income consumers, are also less susceptible to shifts in the economy that can cause pullbacks in spending.

Last year, Pirch moved its flagship San Diego showroom from Miramar to a new two-story, 23,747-square-foot space at Westfield UTC. The space was developed by Westfield Group as part of a larger $180 million renovation of its University Towne Center property.

Westfield officials said Pirch was a good fit with its existing lineup of upscale home goods retailers, including Crate & Barrel, Restoration Hardware and Pottery Barn.

Chicago-based General Growth Properties Inc. (NYSE: GGP), the nation’s second-largest mall operator, is Pirch’s landlord at Glendale Galleria near Los Angeles, as well as its newest store near Chicago.

Like that location, store officials have said the malls where Pirch will be locating in Dallas and Atlanta are also considered upscale-oriented properties, based on their location and tenant mix.

-Advertisement-

Featured Articles

On Good Footing for Growth, Expansion

-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-

Related Articles

-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-