Old Vera Bradley HQ to Get New Life
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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowA Fort Wayne-based office design and furniture company is planning to consolidate its operations into a former Vera Bradley Inc. (Nasdaq: VRA) headquarters. Workspace Solutions plans to relocate all 16 current employees to the building in November. August 21, 2014
News Release
FORT WAYNE, Ind. – Workspace Solutions of Fort Wayne, IN announces its plans to relocate and consolidate from its current two Fort Wayne locations into one facility at 2200 Production Road. The former Vera Bradley Headquarters building will contain all of Workspace Solutions warehouse and showroom facilities now located at 919 Coliseum Boulevard North and at 256 W Main Street in Downtown Fort Wayne.
The family owned business, currently owned by Brent Stoller, president and Mike Hunter, vice president, began operations in 1978 at the current Coliseum Boulevard location as Eastland Sales, offering used office furniture and equipment. In 1996, the name was changed to Workspace Solutions to better reflect the store's evolution to offering full service office planning and design, and to selling new product from the top manufacturers of office furniture, such as AllSteel, Hon, National and others.
“We're excited to get all of our Fort Wayne staff back into one facility,” says Stoller. “We've loved being downtown since our purchase of Business Furniture Outlet in 2006, but the 2 locations have created certain communication and logistical challenges.”
Workspace Solutions is one of the few office furniture stores in our area to offer a public showroom for both their new and used office furniture. “We'll continue that tradition in our new location,” says Stoller, “We'll showcase our furniture in groupings where you can see how it all would fit together and look in your office, conference room, or lobby. And, all of that in a beautiful professional building that much better reflects the business we are today.”
Another important consideration for Workspace Solutions in this move will be quick access to I-69 & US30. According to Hunter, “We have crews on the road every day, and being closer to the interstate will allow us to become more efficient and to better serve our clients.”
Workspace Solutions uses its own trained installation team and own fleet of delivery trucks. They have designed and installed offices as far away as New York City, Los Angeles, and even Hawaii, but their focus continues to be Northeast Indiana, including the Indianapolis, Warsaw, and South Bend areas where the company has satellite sales offices.
All 16 Fort Wayne area employees will move into the new facility, and no jobs will be eliminated according to Stoller. In fact, we already have plans to add more staff as our business has returned to pre-recession levels, and is growing past that to the next level.
“Our primary business plan has always been to exceed our customers' expectations, and to fashion our business to best be situated to accomplish that. We needed a better, centralized location to do that, and that's why we're taking on this project,” Stoller said. “It's a big project, but a major office move is the type of thing we often perform for our clients.”
Both the current Workspace Solutions locations will remain open until the move is accomplished, and all inventory is sold or moved. A giant “Moving Sale” is anticipated in each current facility. The move to the new facility is schedule for late September, 2014
Workspace Solutions is a family-owned business providing office furniture sales and installation, as well as office layout & design.
Source: Workspace Solutions