Linens & More coming to area

Staff report

howland

A new retail chain partly owned by ex-shopping mall magnate J.J. Cafaro will open its flagship store here this summer.

Linens & More, a Brookfield-based retail company that will sell home-decor products, will open its first store, Linens & More for Less, in the Howland Commons Plaza in mid-July, the company announced in a press release Wednesday.

The company plans to open six additional locations in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Kentucky this year. Nine more locations have been slated to open in 2011.

The company plans to open 50 stores nationwide over the next several years, according to the release.

Linens & More opened its corporate headquarters in Brookfield this month, said company spokesman Vic Rubenstein. Chief executive Fred Mershad and 14 other executives have relocated to the Mahoning Valley from as far away as Los Angeles and New York to work for the company, he said.

Overall, the corporate office and flagship will create more than 50 jobs in the region, Rubenstein said.

The company decided to locate its headquarters and flagship store in Trumbull County because of the demographic makeup of the area’s consumer market, Mershad said in a statement.

“We selected the Mahoning Valley because we liked what we interpreted as a near-perfect consumer mix,” Mershad said.

John J. Cafaro of Hubbard, former vice president of the Cafaro Co., invested “significant funds” into Linens & More, Rubenstein said. Cafaro awaits sentencing after pleading guilty to falsely reporting a campaign contribution he made to his daughter Capri Cafaro’s congressional campaign.

“I’ve always believed in the Mahoning Valley,” Cafaro said in a statement. “That is why I am investing my resources here to bring new businesses and new jobs to the region.”

Linens & More operates separately from the Cafaro Co., and Cafaro has no involvement in the company’s operations, Rubenstein said.