The Ethan Allen store in Hamilton Corners on Gunbarrel Road closed Sunday, Jan. 27, 2019. / Photo by Dave Flessner
Ethan Allen Interiors Inc. closed its Chattanooga store near Hamilton Place Mall on Sunday after operating the 3,931-square-foot furniture outlet for just over four years.
The nationwide furniture retailer and interior designer will continue to operate five other designer showrooms in and around Atlanta and other Tennessee locations in Knoxville, Brentwood and Cordova. But Ethan Allen, like other brick-and-mortar retailers, is facing increased competition from online furniture retailers like Wayfair, Birch Line and other web-based retailers and the general trend toward smaller homes and more rental apartments that often require less furniture.
The Ethan Allen store at 2115 Gunbarrel Road in the Hamilton Corner shopping center was one of a half dozen furniture stores within a 2-mile stretch along Gunbarrel Road, including Ashley Homestore, La-Z-Boy Furniture Galleries, Basset Home Furnishings, Total Concepts Furniture and Nadeau.
The store moved into where Coldwater Creek store once operated and it was smaller than most Ethan Allen showrooms.
CBL Properties owns the Hamilton Corner shopping center where the Ethan Allen store operated near the Bonefish Grill restaurant.
"We have a strong prospect to back fill the space, but are unable to make any announcement at this time," CBL spokeswoman Stacey Keating said Monday.
A franchise store owner for Ethan Allen previously shut down a bigger Ethan Allen store in East Brainerd in 2007, but Ethan Allen returned to the Chattanooga market with a corporate-owned store which opened in November 2014.
Ethan Allen manufacturers its furniture at nine production facilities and brags that 75 percent of its furniture is made in North America. It stores offer interior design assistance along with a full range of furniture products and decorative accessories through ethanallen.com and a network of approximately 300 Design Centers in the United States and abroad.
"Our unique vertically integrated structure provides us an opportunity to differentiate and grow both sales and profits," Ethan Allen CEO Farooq Kathwari said in an earnings report Monday. "During the six months ending December 31, 2018, sales increased 1.4 percent despite challenging macroeconomic conditions related to international trade, stock market fluctuations and the government shutdown."
Kathwari said he was "cautiously optimistic" about 2019 results.
The company on Monday reported fiscal second-quarter earnings of $12.2 million, which was in line with analysts expectations. But the $197.2 million in sales in the quarter were below what analysts had expected.
Contact Dave Flessner at dflessner@timesfreepress.com or at 757-6340