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Phantom opens new showroom
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Phantom Fireworks clerk Jared Kirby waits on customers at the new Phantom location in Youngstown. Americans now blow up more than 200 million pounds of fireworks each year.
By Karl Henkel
YOUNGSTOWN
Bruce Zoldan always had wanted to ring Nasdaq’s opening bell on Wall Street as close to the Fourth of July as possible.
Fitting as it would have been for the president and CEO of Youngstown-based Phantom Fireworks, an industry leader in festive pyrotechnics, Zoldan couldn’t complain about ringing it earlier this month.
He and Team Valor International own Animal Kingdom, the thoroughbred racehorse that won this year’s Kentucky Derby and nearly won the Preakness. Team Valor International had the honor of ringing the bell June 9.
Zoldan had his own early Independence Day celebration Thursday, as he and the Phantom Fireworks staff opened the company’s newest showroom at 1260 N. Meridian Road.
It’s the second showroom in the Mahoning Valley. The company also has a dozen chain stores.
The $1.8 million, 13,000-square-foot facility designed by Youngstown-based B&B Contractors and Developers Inc., features 5,000 square feet of retail space and was dubbed “the safest consumer fireworks facility in the state of Ohio” by the State Fire Marshal’s inspection team.
The building has an automatic fire-suppression system, and there are 24/7 fire-alarm and security systems. A person is never more than 75 feet from an emergency exit.
Phantom also noted that all 18 major subcontractors who worked on the facility are located in eastern Ohio or western Pennsylvania.
Dan Peart, director of showroom operations at Phantom, noted the building’s prime location: a half-mile away from both Interstates 80 and 680.
“Real estate is all about your location,” he said.
Its opening coincides nicely with the upcoming holiday, said Peart, and traffic is picking up. Despite more than 1,200 permanent and part-time locations nationwide, company officials said there still was a need for a new Phantom Fireworks building in Youngstown.
“We’ve seen a lot of people come in,” Peart said.