Theres so much revitalization, plus the visibility we get from that location.
Staff photo by Tim Barber / The building undergoing renovation on South Broad and 17th streets will hold commercial space and apartments when the $5 million project is finished.ABOUT SMART FURNITURE
Founder Stephen Culp was a law student at Stanford University when he visited Yahoo in 1998. That company’s massive growth at the time resulted in a major complaint: it couldn’t find furniture to keep up with its expanding workforce and demands.Culp started designing a new type of furniture and, working out of his professor’s garage, he invented Smart Shelves. Consisting of interlocking boards that assemble without tools, Smart Shelves were customizable and expandable — and Smart Furniture was born.Culp opened an online store to begin selling his products. As the company grew, it relocated to Chattanooga where manufacturing, warehousing, and distribution were more accessible than in Palo Alto, Calif.
Smart Furniture believes it's making the smart move by shifting its flagship Chattanooga retail studio to larger space inside a new South Broad commercial and residential project.
"The consensus is that this is the right time to be in the South Broad area," said company Chief Executive Mark Graves. "There's so much revitalization - plus the visibility we get from that location."
The local internet-based company is moving its retail studio to the front of the 1700 Broad Street Building, a former Chevrolet dealership that Chattanooga developer John Straussberger is reworking. The development also will hold 16 apartments dubbed The Garage Lofts.
Smart Furniture is shifting its studio from 2 North Shore on Manufacturers Road, where it has been for about seven years.
Straussberger said Smart Furniture, which is leasing about 3,500 square feet, is the kind of user he envisioned for the $5 million project.
"I think they'll get a lot more exposure and sales," he said. "It will be a good landmark."
While the Chattanooga studio is Smart Furniture's only one currently, Graves said the company is eyeing the addition of retail store locations in the Southeast starting as early as next year.
"We're looking to be regional, a Southeast retailer, and expanding in the Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama area," he said.
The company started out as an online business, but officials believe "the future is multi-channel," he said about the venture that employs about 25 people and has its corporate headquarters and a warehouse in Chattanooga.
Leslie Morales, Smart Furniture's studio manager, said the company has outgrown its North Shore space. The new larger location permits the business to show more furniture and gift items, Morales said.
Also, an estimated 20,000 vehicles a day pass by the South Broad location, she said. In addition, hundreds of new apartments are planned for the area, Morales said.
"We think it's a good opportunity," she said.
Jeff Jennings, of Chattanooga commercial real estate broker NAI Charter Real Estate Corp., said Smart Furniture is "a true Chattanooga success story."
He said the new Broad Street studio will be "the flagship location" for the furniture retailer that sells products nationwide.
Ben Pitts of Herman Walldorf Commercial said the 1700 Broad Street Building started with about 20,000 square feet of commercial space and now has only 3,000 square feet unleased. That could be subdivided into small shop space, he said.
Pitts said the 1700 block of South Broad used to be on the "frontier" of downtown development, but no more.
"We're kind of in the middle of it," he said.
Straussberger said his project is moving at "a real fast pace," with completion expected by year's end.
He said 11 of the 16 apartments are leased, with seven or eight tenants moving in this weekend.
Contact Mike Pare at mpare@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6318.