The parent company of Olinde’s Furniture has acquired three acres of vacant land adjacent to Costco on Airline Highway near Interstate 12 and plans to develop an Ashley Homestore furniture outlet on the site.
Olinde Hardware and Supply Co. LLC acquired the property earlier this month from Costco Wholesale Corporation for $1.35 million, or about $10.60 per square foot. Olinde’s owns and operates five furniture and mattress stores that bear its name, as well as all seven Ashley stores in Louisiana.
The site for the new Ashley store—which will be the first in East Baton Rouge Parish and one of three in the Capital Region—is attractive to Olinde’s for a couple of reasons, according to company president Tom Olinde. It’s adjacent to Costco, which draws big crowds of shoppers, and is one of few remaining parcels of undeveloped land still visible from the interstate.
“Most of the property that used to be visible from the interstate is now blocked by sound barriers and that has a profound effect on stores’ visibility and viability,” Olinde says. “This is close to the interstate and near Costco, and it’s less than five minutes from our flagship (Olinde’s) store.”
Since the August 2016 flood, Olinde’s has been operating a temporary furniture and mattress store out of vacant soundstage space at nearby Celtic Studios, and Olinde says the facility has been “very beneficial.” Though the post-flood rebuilding boom has slowed considerably in the past two months, he believes there is still a lot of demand for a new furniture outlet at that location.
“We own all the Ashley stores in Louisiana and we always thought it was kind of funny that we didn’t have one actually in Baton Rouge,” he says.
The other Capital Region locations are in Denham Springs and Gonzales. Olinde says he is not concerned about the new Ashley’s cannibalizing his existing Olinde’s customer base. Though Ashley is the largest furniture retailer and wholesaler in the world—and “is very aggressive,” Olinde says—the two companies cater to slightly different segments of the market.
“We think they can coexist,” he says. “The merchandise at Olinde’s a little bit higher end and we have hundreds of lines, where Ashley is pretty much a proprietary line.”
Olinde hopes to break ground on the new store in early 2018 and complete construction by the end of next year.
—Stephanie Riegel
