|
Business
Friday, January 25, 2002
GRANARY MOVING TO NEW SPOT
Stores' shared space aims to reel in clients Animal shops plan to become neighbors SCOTT WYLAND, THE OLYMPIAN
OLYMPIA -- An animal health-food store and a dog-care shop will soon share the same west-side building, creating what the owners hope is a complementary tandem.
Mud Bay Granary and Pet Spa are refurbishing their respective spaces at 2410 Harrison Ave. W. and will open their stores there in February.
Both have signed lease agreements to occupy the building that formerly housed Amos Computers.
Mud Bay is moving about a mile up the road from its old site, and Pet Spa is opening its second store.
Both are looking forward to being neighbors.
"Certainly it's true they're very complementary," Mud Bay co-owner Lars Wulff said of Pet Spa. "I think that's part of what made it attractive."
An adjoining window will let customers in one store see what's going on in the other store, said Jed Stickgold, Pet Spa co-manager.
That will create the feeling of a pet center and will enable the stores to feed off one another, he said.
"We'll be able to refer back-and-forth with a clientele that doesn't spend a lot of time going to such places as Pet Smart and Petco," Stickgold said.
Kolb Family Investments LLC owns the site. The company bought the property in mid-2001 from Al-Kaab Properties Inc. for $650,000, according to Thurston County records.
The Kolb family is splitting the cost of site improvements with the tenants.
Pet Spa, which has a store in Lacey, soon will be able to serve customers in the east and west sections of the county, Stickgold said.
Other amenities
The new 3,300-square-foot store will feature a day-care center that will hold up to 75 dogs, and four self-service tubs for bathing canines, he said. It will also offer courses in agility training, behavior modification and first aid for dogs, he said.
Mud Bay Granary's Olympia store is one of nine that the company owns.
A few things prompted Mud Bay to move the South Sound store, Wulff said.
The old site stands in the way of the planned widening of Mud Bay Road. It's also on land that has been rezoned to residential, which would create conflicts if the company ever wanted to renovate.
And the business has outgrown the space, said Wulff, who estimates that the store's sales have grown 500 percent since it was founded in 1988.
"It feeds a lot more animals than it did 10 or 12 years ago," he said.
In the past decade, more people have come to realize the importance of feeding their pets nutritional food, he said.
Mud Bay carries treats, kibbles, canned food, frozen dinners delectable for just about any animal, including dogs, cats, wild birds, goats, cattle and rabbits, Wulff said.
For instance, it stocks venison and ostrich sausage for dogs and salmon treats for cats, he said.
Although some of the food is priced substantially higher than the usual store-bought fare, customers could wind up with lower monthly food bills, he said, because the higher nutritional value allows pets to eat less.
High demand
Rising demand for these products inspired Mud Bay Granary to acquire eight stores from the Bosley Pet Food Mart chain in 2000, including three in Seattle.
Mud Bay bought the stores' assets while Bosley was in receivership, Wulff said. It also worked out lease agreements with the landlords who were leasing the eight store sites to Bosley, he said.
All the stores' employees were retained and now number 65, Wulff said.
The stores' sales have grown 30 percent since they were purchased, he said.
Mud Bay has gradually integrated its preferred food brands into the eight stores, Wulff said. "The stores have been evolving for the last 16 months."
On the Web:
The Olympian Copyright 2002
|
|
|
 The Olympian - Olympia, Washington 
Use of this site signifies your agreement to the Terms of Service. ©2002 The Olympian. |