City Furniture Opening Two More Florida Stores

ORLANDO—Citywide Furniture is beating the expansion drum with plans to expand its Central Florida operations. The retailer will open two showrooms in November in The Villages, an active adult community.

City Furniture signed leases with The Villages' developer and will renovate and merchandise two existing furniture stores a developer-affiliated company currently owns and operates. In total, City's Florida expansion is adding 100 new jobs in the state.

“We're confident in the long-term strength of Florida's markets, and we've scaled our infrastructure and planning accordingly,” says City Furniture president Keith Koenig. “We rolled out e-commerce earlier this year, and that has really boosted deliveries to the Orlando and Tampa areas. Residents at The Villages have shopped at our South Florida stores, so we're already making deliveries in that dynamic growth market. The move gives City Furniture a footprint that extends from south Miami-Dade through Lake, Sumter and Marion counties.”

City Furniture will create its stores in space now occupied by Southern Lifestyles at Lake Sumter Landing and the Showcase Direct showroom in the La Plaza Grande shopping center, which serve the more than 90,000 residents of The Villages community as well as Central Florida consumers from Orlando to Ocala and Gainesville. City Furniture aims to open the La Plaza Grande store by mid-November with the Lake Sumter Landing store to follow soon after.

City Furniture is nearly completed a five-store expansion and renovation program from Miami-Dade through Palm Beach counties. The fourth store in its South Florida expansion, an upscale, environmentally friendly two-story City Furniture showroom, will open in Cutler Bay in October. On an adjoining South Dixie Highway site, the firm has operated a City Furniture store that will be renovated as an Ashley Furniture HomeStore, to open April 2014.