Now people look at [bedding] as an investment in their health rather than a necessity.
Work has started at the site of the planned flagship store for Chattanooga-based MurMaid Mattress at Highway 153 and Lee Highway.Chattanooga-based bedding retailer MurMaid Mattress is raising a flagship store which its owner believes will elevate the company to another level.
The site is a high-profile out- parcel at R&R Plaza at Highway 153 and Lee Highway near the memorial to the Fallen Five.
"It will be in one of the most centralized Chattanooga locations," said Roger Pickett, who owns MurMaid Mattress with wife, Cindy.
Pickett said the business, started by his late stepfather Elmer Murray and his mother, is investing about $1 million into the new 4,800-square-foot building.
The new store will give MurMaid 12 locations in Chattanooga, Cleveland, Tenn., and Dalton, Ga., he said.
Tom DuPre, leasing agent for the shopping center, said the intersection is at "the population center of Hamilton County."
"The greatest number of people can get to that intersection in the shortest amount of time," he said. "He'll be in the first building many people will see."
R&R Plaza, with more than 100,000-square-feet of space and just one unit unoccupied, has other home-oriented businesses in addition to MurMaid, DuPre said.
"There are a lot of people who are homeowners or remodeling and pick up a number of different items [at the center]," he said.
Pickett said the new store will be just two miles down Lee Highway from the company's original 1979 campus, a building that is becoming MurMaid's clearance center. That building formerly served at Murmaid's factory before it was moved to Cleveland. It still serves as MurMaid's main showroom.
MurMaid Mattress owner Roger Pickett stands with the original sewing machine that the company started with in 1979.Pickett, who grew up in the furniture and mattress business with his parents, said MurMaid's old clearance center was on Brainerd Road, which it closed.
"We had it stacked to the ceiling," he said.
Plans are for the new R&R Plaza location to open in about six months, said Pickett.
MurMaid, with about 45 employees, is approaching having a third of the Chattanooga mattress market, he said. Pickett wouldn't give annual revenues, but said he expects this year to come in at a double-digit increase over last year.
Pickett, who came into the business full-time in 1989, said he has seen the business change over the years. When he started, a high-end mattress was about $699, he said.
Today, with better technology, the average price of a bedding sale is more than $1,000, Pickett said.
"Now people look at it as an investment in their health rather than a necessity," he said.
Pickett said his parents originally sold furniture along with bedding. His stepfather later started selling bedding as a factory-direct concept and that business flourished, he said.
DuPre, of Results Realty, said the center owned by California-based Gideon Partners LLC is undergoing a makeover to bring differing building facades into uniformity.
Contact Mike Pare at mpare@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6318.