Founded in the mid-1940s, Doughty's currently operates a three-store chain serving seven counties. The company's main store is located in Clayton, NJ, Gloucester County, and it has smaller specialty stores in Turnersville, also Gloucester County, and in Egg Harbor Twp., near Atlantic City. The company's new warehouse triples its inventory storage space, according to J. Gregory Gaglianone, president of both C&C and Doughty's and grandson of the latter operation's founder.

The acquisition was completed with the help of a financing package put together by the New Jersey EDA and Sun National Bank under the EDA's Statewide Loan Pool for Business program. C&C obtained a loan of just over $1.6 million from Sun National, with the EDA providing a 25% participation at an initial interest rate of 3% and guaranteeing 25% of the bank's portion of the financing. The funding was made under EDA's Preferred Lender Program, which was established to speed up the loan approval process, according to the state agency's executive director, Caren S. Franzini.

"Our goal is to work with out banking partners to help small businesses grow and create jobs," Franzini explains. She notes that EDA's Statewide Loan Pool for Business program "has generated almost $475 million in new private investment and 8,200 new jobs since it was established more than a decade ago."

"This was a property and a building that we really wanted," says Gaglianone. "EDA's terms were terrific and made it possible to acquire the facility."

The new facility will also provide the Doughty's operation with a substantial gain in cubic storage space because it has much higher ceilings than the warehouse it replaces, according to Gaglianone, who expects his company to add a substantial number of new jobs over the next few years.