Though comfortably quiet through much of the late 1990s, Spokanes retail furniture market has been getting a new look recently.


Two out-of-state players, Furniture Row Cos. and Hacienda Furniture, have opened stores in the Spokane area, scooting into a void left when Heilig-Meyers Co. filed for protection from creditors under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code and closed its two stores here late last year.


In addition, an established bedroom store is entering the fray by adding a full line of furniture products to its bedroom offerings, and one venerable furniture retailer here has bought a locally owned competitor.


Meanwhile, another out-of-state company has opened and closed a store here within a matter of months.


Jim Hanley, vice president and sales manager at Spokane-based National Furniture Store Inc., says that along with the surge in activity, furniture-store advertising here marketwide has increased significantly over the past six or seven months.


Tough times could be on the way, though. Hanley recently returned from a buying trip to a national trade show in Mississippi, and says the show drew fewer furniture retailers than any other such event hes attended in the last five years.


Spokane is holding its own, but on the national level, its slowing down, he says.


Bruce McEachran, general manager of the 90-year-old Burgans Fine Furniture store just north of downtown, says that despite the increased activity, he thinks the net number of furniture stores here is about the same as in recent years. He says, however, Well continue to see changes. Im just not sure where its going.


Bill McKendry, the Grand Rapids, Mich.-based marketing director for Denver-based Furniture Row Cos., has a theory. He says that both nationally and in Spokane, furniture consumers are falling into two camps.


About 80 percent of buyers are looking for low prices, or the most furniture they can get for the least amount of money, he says. For the remaining 20 percent, price is less important, and instead qualityand brand recognitionare top priorities.


The furniture industry is really changing, McKendry says. There is no middle market anymore. People who think there is are either dead or dying.


Predictably, most of the new activity here has involved retailers who are catering to the camp thats looking for the biggest bang for its buck.


Furniture Rows approach to the Spokane market is a good example. It opened a Furniture Row Outlet store at 7520 N. Division earlier this summer in a 40,000-square-foot retail space that previously housed Heilig-Meyers North Side store.


Furniture Row Outlet is a new concept for the 29-year-old company, which operates seven distinct retail furniture and bedding chains and has a total of 170 stores in 33 states. Through its outlet stores, it sells select products from a few of its chains for discounted prices. The Spokane store, only the companys fourth such outlet, carries goods from two of its parent companys furniture chains, Oak Express and Sofa Mart, and from two of its bedroom stores, Denver Mattress and Bedroom Expressions.


So far, McKendry says, Sales have started off quickly and have exceeded expectations considerably. Our instincts are proving right.


Furniture Row had been looking to enter the Spokane market for some time. Before the company opened its North Side store, it had bought five acres along Indiana Avenue near the Spokane Valley Mall. McKendry says the company hasnt decided yet whether to build a retail store on that land or instead construct a manufacturing facility to make goods for its growing Pacific Northwest operations.


Another retailer, Victoria, B.C.-based Hacienda Furniture, opened an 8,000-square-foot store last week at Argonne Village Shopping Center in the Spokane Valley. That store carries Southwestern-style furniture and plans to introduce other lines of international-style goods, such as Asian and Eastern Indian furniture, in coming months. Bill McCleary, who owns Hacienda Furniture with his wife, Glenda, says that even though the store will appeal to niche customers, he expects to compete pricewise at the lower end of the overall market.


The McClearys, who have their offices in Victoria, started Hacienda Furniture last year after selling their interest in Iguana Ameramex, a chain of Southwestern-style furniture stores in the western and southwestern U.S. The Spokane outlet is Hacienda Furnitures secondit opened its first store in Las Vegas last October.


Weve been looking at Spokane for a while and thinking its underserved for the unique specialty products that we have, he says.


A retailer that has had a store here for 18 years, San Diego-based Super Stores of America Inc., has begun expanding and remodeling its Bedroom Super Store and is turning it into a Mor Furniture For Less outlet. That project involves converting warehouse space into showroom space at the current bedroom outlet, at 1201 N. Division, and is expected to be completed this fall.


After the conversion, the store will carry a full line of furniture, rather than only goods for the bedroom. It has operated as a Bedroom Super Store here since 1983.


One newcomer didnt last long here. Portland-based Value City Inc. opened a GranTree Furniture store downtown in April and disclosed plans to open two more stores in the Spokane area within a year. Instead, however, the store it opened, which sold both new and used furniture and consumer electronics, closed last month. Officials at Value City couldnt be reached for comment, so its unclear whether the company still has plans for other stores here.


A separate company, GranTree Corp., had operated two GranTree Furniture stores here in the late 1980s, but left the Spokane market in 1991 after it filed for protection from creditors under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.


Some established Spokane-area furniture retailers say the recent flux has had relatively little effect on their business. McEachran, at Burgans, says sales this year have been steady, though perhaps down a bit from last year.


E.S. Burgan & Son Inc., which operates Burgans, stirred up the market somewhat this past winter when it bought Snows Furniture Inc., a Spokane company that operates both a Spears Furniture store and a Norwalk Furniture store here.


Unlike the companies that have entered the Spokane market in recent months, Burgans and the other two stores all sell higher-end goods. Despite that, McEachran says, We dont see a lot of overlap in the customers we serve at the three locations.


Some of the three stores functions, such as inventory warehousing and accounting, are being consolidated, but each outlet has kept its name, product mix, and staff.


Hanley, of National Furniture, says that 40-year-old companys business has increased modestly this year. He attributes that partially to the absence of Heilig-Meyers, and to the departure of Montgomery Ward & Co., which he says sold a lot of furniture here before the company filed for bankruptcy, closed its Spokane store late last year, and went out of business.


Hanley says their absence has hurt in another way, however. Both of those national chains advertised heavily here, which in general motivated people to shop for furniture at their stores and all locations. Though furniture advertising has picked up in recent months, he says he thinks fewer consumer dollars have been going toward furniture since the two businesses left the market.


They were doing some big numbers, Hanley says, but the numbers that they did arent being picked up by the furniture stores in Spokane.


He says he expects the new players to continue to advertise more heavily and generate the same sort of traffic that past national players had spurred.