Rejuvenation,
a cataloger of period lighting fixtures and hardware, is opening its second store, a 6,000-sq.-ft. shop in Seattle, next month. The new store is the 27-year-old Portland, OR-based company’s first retail opening in more than a decade. But while Rejuvenation president/CEO Mary Roberts says the $30 million company will take a wait-and-see approach to future retail expansion, she’s hopeful that it will be able to open a store a year going forward.
The company, which has hired former Nike retail executive Jarvis Brecker as retail director, is opening the Seattle store, called Rejuve Seattle, in a building it restored in what Roberts calls a “rundown area” near Safeco Field, where the Seattle Mariners baseball team plays. The store will sell everything offered in the catalog.
The Seattle location—and subsequent store locales—was chosen because the Rejuvenation catalog does well in areas that have large concentrations of homes built between 1880 and 1950, Roberts says.
In fact, Rejuvenation will be more picky than most other retailers in choosing future store locations. “We’re not taking the cookie-cutter approach,” Roberts says. “Our approach is one that honors architecture.” That combined with choosing store locations in areas in which Rejuvenation has had success in catalog and online sales will dictate the company’s future retail growth.