Highland furniture store planning major renovation, expansion in southwest Illinois
Kloss Furniture is planning a major renovation and expansion that should triple the size of its Highland store.
The project will be completed with a little help from the city.
The Highland City Council approved an economic development agreement earlier this month that will assist Kloss Furniture with a $5.58 million expansion project for its store at 135 Poplar St. Kloss is located within Highland’s business district, which makes it eligible for incentive packages that include tax rebates.
The city will reimburse up to 75% of city property taxes for up to 10 years, up to 20% of the cost of the project, as well as reimbursing permit fees up to $10,000.
The estimated amount the city would be reimbursing — depending on how property values increase — would be just over $28,000 a year or $282,180 over the 10-year course of the agreement, but all incentives together are capped at no more than $1.1 million.
The existing building will remain, but will be renovated and improved with some portions demolished, according to the plans filed with the city. Community development director Breann Speraneo said the addition would add 54,000 square feet, bringing the total size of the new store up to 83,000 square feet.
Approximately $32,000 of the total cost involves site improvements, with $18,000 for demolitions and $30,000 for architectural and engineering costs.
The remaining $5.5 million will be construction of the new building, which is primarily warehouse space to support all Kloss stores.
“One thing that we found from the pandemic after we were shut down for a few months is that having in-stock product is key for us,” said chain owner Josh Kloss. “We were lucky enough to find product all over the U.S., and we need space for all the product that we have.”
At the moment, Kloss is renting warehouse space, but after the expansion it will all be moved to the Highland location — with an eye to adding more stores in the future, all supplied from Highland.
That’s on purpose for Kloss, who is a third-generation Highland resident.
“My dad was born and raised in Highland, and my grandma is from Grantfork and was raised here,” he said. “We have big ties to Highland and we just love being here.”
Current gross sales for all the stores are estimated at $22 million with 27 full-time jobs currently at the Highland store. Eight more full-time jobs are expected to be created by the expansion.
“The employees we get from Highland are awesome,” Kloss said. “We didn’t even look for other communities (for our warehouse) because we want to support Highland as much as we can.”
Future plans for Kloss Furniture
However, Kloss is also looking to open more locations. In business since 1976, Kloss Furniture has locations in Highland, O’Fallon and Edwardsville.
“Once we have the warehouse built, and we get the product under one roof, we are looking to expand to other markets,” he said, but declined to say where they might be looking to open new stores.
However, expansion of retail outlets will also mean more work at the warehouse, Kloss said.
“As we open more stores, we’ll keep adding jobs as long as our warehouse can support them,” he said.
Kloss said they hope to be moving dirt within the month and will have the foundation laid in September. The warehouse should hopefully open in mid-2022.