Spring 2019 Hardlines Strategies

CUSTOMER PROFILE

Making It as a Professional A Kansas Lumberyard is Becoming a Template for Renovation

The Greenwich Road location of Star Lumber & Supply, located on the east side of the company’s headquarters city of Wichita, Kansas, is situated in a shopping center on a busy corner of a growing community. The lumberyard owns the shopping center and leases out other retail locations.

S elf-discovery can be a long and sometimes challenging road. The path to finding a true purpose, to knowing what you’re here to do and who you’re doing it for, forces someone to confront their own goals and limitations. Why should it be any different for a business?

One Blish-Mize customer, Star Lumber & Supply, recently went through that very process. The company has multiple locations across Kansas and Oklahoma, with two retail stores in Wichita, Kansas, builder— and contractor—focused locations in Salina and Manhattan, Kansas, and a home construction flooring operation in Oklahoma City. The Greenwich Road location in Wichita, as it’s referred to in the company, is located on the northeast side of the city. This facility was opened in 2008 and has gone through its share of reinventions on the way to its current form: a professional—focused location serving the remodeler and contractor community. “We saw the city expand as we looked for a location where we could best make an impact,” says Allen Spurgeon, director of stores for Star Lumber & Supply.

“We saw so much growth happening in this area that, in 2008, we finally took a big step.” That step led to the store on Greenwich Road. It’s located in a shopping mall that the company built, and Star Lumber & Supply is the landlord for other stores within that shopping center. The choice of location has kept the store in a convenient spot for contractors, remodelers and DIYers even as the city has grown around it. “We anticipated the city growing here, and it worked out as we had anticipated,” says Gene Stuhlsatz, general manager of the Greenwich Road store. “The last three years have seen a lot of growth, particularly with new homes as the city expands. There have also been a number of remodels of the homes built in the last decade or so in this area.”

28 Spring 2019 • Hardlines Strategies