ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, April 25, 1997 TAG: 9704250048
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A-10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JEFF STURGEON THE ROANOKE TIMES
The store, in Clifton Forge, will anchor a new retail and housing complex there.
The Bacova Guild Ltd., a Bath County maker of decorative home furnishings, will open its first outlet by March 1998. The store will anchor a new retail and housing complex in Clifton Forge, a company official said Wednesday.
Bacova also announced the sale of its mailbox division this month and plans for a second outlet, possibly in Roanoke.
Bacova makes decorative rugs, shower curtains and other home decor and sells them through department stores such as Belk and Sears, Roebuck & Co. It also operates two company-owned stores - in Hot Springs and Williamsburg - that president Ben I. Johns Jr. described as high-end specialty shops.
"It's really a different flavor that we're going to be doing over in Clifton Forge," Johns said.
The Clifton Forge outlet will carry discontinued merchandise and misprints, selling at lower prices than department stores charge, he said. Many of the items will come from Bacova's factory at Low Moor.
Bacova will be the largest of two retail tenants in the Alleghany Building on the portion of Ridgeway Street being developed with apartments and commercial space by the Alleghany Highlands Housing Alliance.
Johns said the company wants to open a second outlet within 100 miles of Low Moor and has looked for space in Roanoke and the Shenandoah Valley, but has not chosen a site. He said he needs to steer clear of department stores that carry his goods, but "the farther we go away from Bath County, the less our name means to anybody."
Bacova, which began as a home-grown company in Bath County, was taken over in 1981 by Johns and his then-partner, Pat Haynes. They expanded the product lines and in 1995 sold it to textile giant Burlington Industries Inc. of Greensboro, N.C. Haynes, Bacova's former chief executive officer, left the company in October.
On April 1, Bacova sold its fiberglass mailbox business to Bluegrass Woods Inc., a Highland County maker of mailboxes, bird houses and other wood items. Bluegrass Woods intends to close its Highland County production site and move to a former Bacova location in Millboro. A small number of former Bacova employees will transfer there.
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