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A solid game plan
BOARDMAN
Fin, Feather and Fur Outfitters has done a lot of growing in its nearly 29-year history.
In 1985, the outdoor supplies store occupied just 2,400 square feet in a small cinder-block building in Ashland, Ohio.
By 2000, those 2,400 square feet had become 72,000, after the company moved to its massive new facility — its headquarters — also in Ashland.
And in the past three years, the company has branched out to three more locations in Northeast Ohio, the newest being the recently announced store in Boardman’s Tiffany Square.
The Boardman store, set to open in early April, is Fin, Feather and Fur’s largest satellite store to date, occupying the 30,000-square-foot building that used to house Value City.
“Our industry is growing,” said Rees Vail, general manager at the company’s three satellite stores in Middleburgh, Canton and Boardman.
Even during an economic downturn, the hunting, camping and clothing retailer has been able to grow with the industry.
Including the Boardman store, the company now has about 85,000 square feet of retail space in its portfolio. It spends almost $1.4 million on advertising and serves approximately 930,000 customers each year.
And Fin, Feather and Fur has gotten used to the growth. The company has its own warehouse in Ashland, where employees construct everything they need for new stores, and the build-out is done exclusively by the company’s staff of carpenters and other workers.
As Vail and Fin, Feather and Fur owner Michael Goschinski surveyed the Boardman location in mid-February, they said lessons from recent store openings have laid the groundwork for the Boardman store. But every location is different.
“We have a blueprint about where everything goes,” Goschinski said. “But once you get in here, it’s all instinct.”
The space was mostly bare, except for a few hunting trophies — bear, elk, deer — that already adorned the wood-paneled walls.
Vail, who has been with the company for 13 years, is a bow hunter himself. So is Goschinski, an Ashland native who grew up hunting and fishing.
Both men used the word “passion” when talking about their chosen field. It’s the intangible aspect to the company’s success, they said, and they try to pass on their energy to their employees.
“When people come here, it’s not just a job to them. It’s more than that, and those kinds of people are the people we like to find,” Vail said. “People have a passion for this.”
Goschinski said he takes between 20 and 30 employees a year out on a hunt.
“For me, I love to take somebody bear hunting or red stag hunting or elk hunting that’s never done that before and experience that with them,” Goschinski said.
That kind of investment has paid off for Fin, Feather and Fur, which has retained many of the employees at its flagship location for eight to 10 years, Goschinski said.
Fin, Feather and Fur has about 220 employees on its payroll, and 40 to 45 of them will soon be working in Boardman. About 35 of the store’s employees already are working at the Canton location.
Vail said Boardman was appealing because of its high population and traffic counts and its easy access from U.S. Route 224 and Interstate 680.
Goschinski, he said, had been in talks with the property’s owners for about a year, before the official announcement was made early last month.
Kutlick Realty LLC negotiated the lease. Bill Kutlick, the broker, said the agreement was part of a multimillion-dollar renovation campaign that aims to attract a variety of retailers to Tiffany Square.
The store, Kutlick said, will benefit from a new $1 million energy-efficient roof and a new facade. Other updates to the plaza include new lighting, landscaping and wider sidewalks, he added.
For Kutlick, Fin, Feather and Fur’s reputation made it a perfect fit.
“The true hunter and fisherman will go in that store, and they will receive great service,” he said.