OT: More Bad News for Gardner, MA

[quickdtoo]

http://www.telegram.com/article/20080607/NEWS/806070349/1116

Furniture maker teetering on brink

After 246 years, it may be closing

By George Barnes TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
gbarnes@telegram.com
 
 


Mr. Nichols
Enlarge photo 
 

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We were feeling confident, but in the last couple years, it has been tough.

Carlton E. “Tuck” Nichols,
NICHOLS & STONE CO. 
 
 
 
 


GARDNER— It may be the oldest continuously operated furniture company in the country, but Nichols & Stone Co., the last large furniture company in what is still called the Chair City, may soon be closing its doors.

Carlton E. “Tuck” Nichols, president and CEO, said yesterday that Nichols & Stone Co. is going on vacation at the end of the month and will wind down its manufacturing by then. It is normally closed for the first two weeks of July, but this time it is undecided if it will reopen and, if it does, in what capacity.

“We still have a little ray of hope,” Mr. Nichols said. 


Mr. Nichols said he is talking with several parties who might be able to help the company reopen later in July.

A slow economy, increasing competition from overseas and changes in buying habits have brought the venerable furniture maker to the brink of closing. With people having to decide between heating their homes and making retail purchases, fine furniture makers are losing out. The industry has been faced with foreign competition for many years, but with China becoming a bigger and bigger player, the challenge has been daunting.

Gardner lost much of its furniture business to North Carolina and other Southern states in the 1980s, but Mr. Nichols said the industry down there has disappeared as well.

Nichols & Stone got its start in 1762 as Nichols Bros. Chair Manufactory in Westminster. It has been in business since in one form or another and run by the same family.

Eight generations of the Nichols family have run the business. Mr. Nichols has been with the company for 40 years, including 30 years as its president. Seeing most of Gardner’s furniture companies and the furniture business throughout the country collapse has been difficult for him.

“It’s gut-wrenching,” he said.

Mr. Nichols said his company survived difficult economic times in the past by finding a niche in high-quality products.

“We were feeling confident, but in the last couple years, it has been tough,” he said.

Importers have begun targeting their products, bringing in cheaper versions to sell to a public that is increasingly looking at cost versus quality.

Nichols Bros. became Clark, Nichols & Co. in 1857 and operated in Westminster until 1893. That year, because of expanding operations, and a lack of access to railroads, the company moved to Gardner. In 1907, what is now known as Nichols & Stone Co. was founded after Charles Nichols bought out his brother, Marcus, and went into business with Reuben S. Stone. The company became part of the Chair City’s furniture-making heritage. At one time the city was filled with large furniture companies. The largest was Heywood-Wakefield Co. There also were S. Bent Bros. Co., Conant Ball Co., L. & Z. Kamman Co., Collier-Keyworth Co. and Gem Industries operating in the city alongside Nichols & Stone. Nichols & Stone grew to eventually employ more than 350 people in Gardner and North Carolina.

The company has been operating for many years at its Sherman Street plant, but has been downsizing in the hope of phasing out its manufacturing, selling the factory and moving into half of the former Simplex Time Recorder Co. on Cross Street. There, the plan was to purchase furniture components from overseas and assemble, finish and sell them.

Mr. Nichols said the standards of the assembled furniture would be the same as was expected of Nichols & Stone furniture for the past 246 years.

Toward that end, the company looked into some type of state aid that would help with the transition. Mr. Nichols said what he found is there is money available for job creation, but nothing for job retention.

Gardner Planning Director Robert L. Hubbard said the loss of furniture manufacturing in the city and nearby communities has been ongoing since the 1980s.

“When I began in 1988-89, just prior to that there were three or four large furniture companies that closed down,” he said. “The furniture industry in the late ’80s and early ’90s was badly hit by foreign competition.”

Mr. Hubbard said the reason Nichols & Stone continued to operate is likely due to the niche the company had in the high-end furniture market, the company’s well-established name, and to the efforts of Mr. Nichols to keep the business operating.

“Nichols and Stone survived because he was committed to the city and he was unusually committed to his work force,” he said.

Mr. Hubbard said local ownership is an important factor in whether a company closes, or continues in business. He said gun manufacturer H & R 1871 was a good example of a company in the city that likely closed because it went out of local control. Once that happened, the needs of a large corporation took precedence over the needs of a single manufacturing plant.

“At the Fortune 500 level, it has very little reflection on the productivity of the plant,” he said.

Plans are afoot for the Nichols & Stone property on Sherman Street, should the plant be closed. Mr. Hubbard said the city has received preliminary inquiries about having the area developed into commercial property.

Mr. Nichols acknowledged that the company is planning to sell the Sherman Street property. The company maintained about 200 employees there until February, when it began to downsize. It was down to about less than half of that as it prepared for the possibility of moving into the Cross Street property.

Whether that will happen is still being decided. For now, the company is planning to continue operating its offices and shipping department.

 

[dracphelan]

That's to bad. I try to buy quality furniture whenever I can. But, most people seem to prefer the cheap stuff from Ikea. I really hate the huge amount of cheap furniture that seems to flooding people's homes.