Furniture Superstore Inc., of Kent, Wash., plans to close the two retail furniture outlets it operates here and to cease operations altogether, says owner Kai Chang.


The company operates a 38,000-square-foot store at 5605 E. Sprague that it opened in 2004 and a 22,000-square-foot store at 8016 N. Division that it opened last year. It formerly also had operated a store in Bend, Ore., but closed that outlet before opening the Spokane Valley store.


The two stores here typically have employed a combined total of about 20 people, though right now theyre being staffed by about double that number to help with liquidation of inventory, which Chang says he hopes will be complete around the middle of this month.


The company bought the building on East Sprague when it opened the store there. The store is located between a Costco Wholesale Corp. store and a Home Depot Inc. store. Prior to that, the building had housed a Heilig-Meyers Co. furniture store. Chang says he plans to sell or lease out the building on Sprague.


On North Division, the company leased a space formerly occupied by Magnolia Hi-Fi, a block north of another Costco store, and added the word Gallery to the name of the store it opened there to reflect the stores smaller size. Both stores, though, have offered what Chang described as a middle to high-end, full line of furniture for all rooms of the house.


Chang says he is closing the business because of a generally difficult business climate, and he plans to pursue other business opportunities in the Seattle area. He declines to disclose the companys annual revenues. He says he opened the stores in the Spokane area because of the retail locations that were available here.


Chang had said shortly before opening the North Side store that he also hoped to open stores in Coeur dAlene, the Tri-Cities, and Boise, depending on available locations. He said he hoped to open one or two more stores each year over the next five years and eventually to have stores all over Washington, Idaho, Oregon, and Montana.


Contact Jeanne Gustafson at (509) 344-1264 or via e-mail at jeanneg@spokanejournal.com.