Furniture outlet settles in at new Fort Smith digs
FORT SMITH — FFO Home is settling into its new corporate headquarters.
On Monday, the furniture retailer celebrated its move from nearby Muldrow, Okla., where its operations and support functions were situated in five different locations. In Fort Smith, the company’s corporate offices, manufacturing and distribution operations are all under one roof at the Spartan Logistics building — the former Whirlpool distribution center.
In October 2014, Spartan Logistics finalized its purchase of Whirlpool Corp.’ s 620,000- square- foot warehouse in Fort Smith on Jenny Lind Road. The warehouse is part of a 152- acre com-
plex that includes 2.2 million square feet of buildings, along with Whirlpool’s vacant plant, which was not part of the deal. Whirlpool closed the plant in June 2012.
Larry Zigerelli, president and chief executive officer, said FFO Home has 65 employees working at the facility and occupies about 185,000 square feet of space where it operates warehouse space and assembles mattresses, home decor items and some wood products. The company revealed its plans to move to
Fort Smith in July.
“We are glad to be part of the community,” he said.
Preliminary data from the U. S. Department of Labor on the Fort Smith Metropolitan Statistical Area — which covers Sebastian, Crawford and Franklin counties in Arkansas and LeFlore and Sequoyah counties in Oklahoma — for September show unemployment at 5.3 percent, down from 5.6 percent for the same period in 2014. The statewide preliminary unemployment rate for September was 5.2 percent, down from 5.8 percent a year earlier.
Fort Smith’s labor force in September stood at 120,740,
up from 119,267 for the same month in 2014 but still far below the decade high of 129,983 in 2007, before the recession hit in 2008 and the region’s labor force began to decline.
For the second quarter of 2015, Fort Smith ranked No. 5 on the Arkansas Tech Business Index. It came behind the Northwest Arkansas cities of Bentonville, Fayetteville, Springdale and Rogers respectively. Fort Smith ranked first on the index for the first quarter of 2015.
FFO Home opened its first store in Fort Smith in 1984. Today it has 36 stores in four states — Arkansas, Oklahoma,
Missouri and Kansas — and employs more than 375 workers.
The new headquarters in Fort Smith is part of the company’s expansion plans. FFO Home has opened six locations in the last year and a half and intends to open a new store each quarter.
Gary Cooper, vice president logistics and facilities, said the company had outgrown its old office setup and its new location allows for the growth the company anticipates. At the Spartan Logistics building, the company can add an additional 120,000 square feet as the need arises.
“We’re set,” he said.