A local furniture shop is moving out of Hamilton citing ever increasing rental costs forcing them out of the city.
Mayne’s Furniture, which has been a fixture on King Street for the last 25 years, is closing its doors and moving to Heron Bay, Southampton at the end of the month.
“Hamilton is just out of reach,” said owner Bill Mayne, who said that his rent has been increased annually approximately $1,500 for the last several years. “They wanted to raise the rent on me this year, but I wouldn’t let them.”
Mr Mayne used to own the King Street building but said he sold it around four years ago.
“I said to them [landlord] ‘these are rough times’ but they didn’t want to listen, so I moved the shop,” said Mr Mayne, who is in the process of moving his inventory and is aiming to complete the move by the end of January.
Mayne’s, which sells a variety of home furnishings, will now be based out of Heron Bay shopping centre, underneath the Marketplace grocer, where Mr Mayne has had his warehouse for a number of years. The new space boasts a 4,000-square-foot showroom and an equal amount of storage space, which is more than ten times larger than the 600-square-foot store in Hamilton. Aside from getting more square footage for his money, Mr Mayne said there were added benefits to moving outside the city.
“Parking is good and we have lots of space,” he said of the new store. “It’s going to be better for our customers. There is a big supermarket upstairs they can do all their shopping in one location.”
The Hamilton shop has been running a 50 percent discount sale since the beginning of the month, which will run until they close their doors.
“The sale has been going over really well. We’ve got rid of quite a bit of inventory which has helped the move,” he said, adding that the new Heron Bay store also has the sale running.
The poor economy has placed some strain on the business, but Mr Mayne said that so far, he hasn’t had to cut any staff.
“That’s my aim. I’m trying not to lay anyone off, but I can’t guarantee anything,” he said. “2012 is an unknown quantity and I’m hoping things won’t go backwards. I’ve been in this business since 1957 and it has treated me well. We’ve done well and we want to keep it up.”
Calls to Mayne’s landlord were not returned by press time.
For the remainder of this month, both the Hamilton and Heron Bay stores will be open from 8am to 5pm.