Richland furniture stores to reopen soon

RICHLAND — Two recently shuttered Richland furniture stores will be reopening soon.

Complete Suite Furniture will be relocating its store at 731 N. Columbia Center Blvd. to the former home of Thomas Furniture at 1911 Fowler St., said Charlie Hess, general manager of Spokane-based Complete Suite Furniture.

The new location will be about twice the size of the Columbia Center location.

“The bigger space will allow us to have a bigger selection (of furniture),” he said.

He said the Columbia Center location will be having a major sale to get rid of its inventory in about a month. After that sale is complete, the company will be opening the new store with new inventory.

Employees at the current store will be moving to the new store, Hess said. The company also will be hiring a couple of new people, he said.

A new owner will be reopening the Richland-based Ashley Furniture HomeStore as well.

The store at 1340 Tapteal Drive closed about two months ago, said John Fujii, manager of Vancouver, Wash.,-based Richland/Fujii-Kubota LLC, which will operate the new store.

Fujii said his business is in the process of fulfilling the requirements to become a licensee of Wisconsin-based Ashley HomeStores Ltd.

He said his family-owned business hopes to reopen the Richland store in late April. Families involved in his business already own the building in which the store will be located, Fujii said.

Fujii said the new store is rehiring some of the employees who worked at the previous Ashley Furniture HomeStore at that location and has retained the former store manager as well.

He said the business already is advertising for people to fill about another 15 positions.

“We intend to be there a long time,” Fujii added.

-- Kathy Korengel: 509-582-1541; kkorengel@tricityherald.com

This story was originally published April 5, 2011 at 5:59 AM with the headline "Richland furniture stores to reopen soon."