Building the Store: Into The Home Stretch

BY EILEEN MCCLELLAND | Published in the May 2013 issue

PART 9 OF A SERIES that will cover the construction of the new Grogan Jewelers store in Florence, AL, from initial plans to a projected spring 2013 completion.

All that activity and attention to detail culminated in a new phase that would mark significant progress — interior sheetrock work began on Feb. 26, and was projected to take three weeks from beginning to end. “We’re really getting excited now,” Klos says. “The sheetrock will make a big difference.”When Jay Klos met with his staff on the site of the new store in early March, everyone was excited about the sheetrock being up. It was the beginning of the home stretch for this project and it looked like he’d meet his April deadline. “If all goes well, we’ll be moving in the last weekend in April,” he said. “The last month is the craziest of all of them. The pressure is on.”

MARCH PROGRESS

All of the glass was installed in the windows and the stone accents on the exterior were being finished. Klos had hired new staff members and begun their training. He’d also ordered incase displays, a decision he’d been weighing for months.

DELAYS

Electrical was running behind. Light fixtures were back-ordered, so Klos planned to open without them and improvise until they are available in May or early June.

INTERIOR

The ceiling is 24 feet tall, so all of the ceiling work — cameras, security, etc. — needs to be done with equipment that rolls into the space. So it needs to be done before the wood and stone floors are installed so they won’t be damaged. “The last thing that’s done is the flooring, which has to be done before the cases are down.”

DISPLAYS

“We went all out on our case trim,” says Klos, who had been working with a $30,000 budget on this item. Klos sent his assistant to California to meet with representatives from Alex Velvet. The display system, in rich tones of dark copper and silver, will vary in color and texture, but will be complementary. “It made a big, big difference to fly her out there and work one on one,” Klos says. “We did face time on the phone so they could show me stuff. It’s so cool. It blends together — but one case doesn’t look like the others.”

INVENTORY

Klos ordered stock to fill his new cases last year as well as at the Continental Buying Group show in January. He expected delivery by mid-April. Pandora will have a presence in his Florence store, and he’s also bringing in KIR Collection silver, Rebecca, I. Reiss and three new bridal lines, including ArtCarved, a colored stone line and a diamond line.