April 23, 2018 – Tyler Kula, Sarnia Observer – For furniture retailer Tepperman’s, Monday was an end; Friday is a new beginning.
The Sarnia store, at the Lambton Mall since 1993, was closing its doors there for the final time.
The ribbon cutting for a new nearly-40,000-square-foot location at the former Zellers Plaza on London Road is less than a week away, said Andrew Tepperman, company president.
“We’re shut down for about three days, just to move all the technology stuff, the wiring, cameras over,” Tepperman said.
“And then we’ll open on Friday.”
The new store, part of redevelopment plans for the plaza at 1249 London Rd., will be like the company’s Kitchener store, opened in 2016, Tepperman said.
A New York designer at the time helped the company create “what we called ‘the store of the future,’” he said.
Some of the offerings at the new Sarnia store will include, he said, free electric car charging, a coffee bar, an area for kids to colour and watch movies while their parents shop, a new drive-thru pickup window, and an expanded warehouse.
“We’re basically duplicating the Kitchener store,” Tepperman said.
Also new in Sarnia will be the company’s Bargain Annex “store within a store.”
Sarnia’s was the only one of five Tepperman’s locations that didn’t have one, Tepperman said.
The expansion means about five more jobs in Sarnia, he said, noting positions in the company’s distribution, customer care and credit services centres have also been increased to manage extra volume.
“We’re forecasting a lot of growth in Sarnia right now,” he said, pointing to investment in Sarnia-Lambton from the likes of Lambton College and Nova Chemicals.
“Just the energy right now in Sarnia, I haven’t seen it like this in a long time,” said the Windsor native and 21-year veteran of the company his grandfather started in 1925.
Nothing is finalized yet to fill the space Tepperman’s is leaving in Lambton Mall, said Laura Beecroft, property manager.
“The leasing process takes quite some time with large spaces like this and there are limited retailers who would come to a market this size and are also looking at expanding,” she said, noting the mall’s team is working diligently to find a fit.
Tepperman’s is marking the new Sarnia store by offering five $1,000 post-secondary scholarships for kids 10 and under during the month of May. Normally there are two draws per month from submissions at the stores, Tepperman said.
People interested can stop in and fill out a ballot without purchase, he said.
More than $625,000 in scholarship money has been awarded since 1998, he said.
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