Venerable San Francisco dealer to close

Home Channel News, May 1, 2000 by Brae Canlen

Family dispute leads to the demise of 51-year-old Goodman Lumber

SAN FRANCISCO -- Goodman Lumber, a 51-year-old home center and Northern California landmark, will cease operations on Aug. 31 because of a family dispute.

"I'm being forced out of business," said the company's president, Charles Goodman. In an interview with NHCN, Goodman explained that his sister and landlord, Joan Goodman Zimmerman, sent him a new lease on March 2 that required more than $1 million in upgrades to his Bayshore Boulevard site. The improvements would include grading and repaving a shared parking lot and renovating the exterior of the 157,500-square-foot home center.

"I've been on a month-to-month lease here for the last 10 years," said Goodman. His sister, who plans to develop the property next door as a new retail complex, would not agree to a long-term lease even if Goodman made the renovations, he said. "No businessman would [agree] to those terms," he added. Goodman Lumber also had to give up its outdoor lumberyard and nursery -- approximately 25 percent of the home center's retail space -- to the new development, he said.

Goodman Zimmerman could not be reached for comment, and her attorney, Jonathan Bass, did not return calls. But Bass told the San Francisco Chronicle that his client had been willing to negotiate any disagreeable terms. She reportedly was traveling overseas during the month of March, however.

Goodman Lumber, a sprawling hodgepodge of hardware and tools, appliances, home furnishings, building materials and close-out specials, generated $54 million in sales in 1999. The majority of its customers were DIYers, property managers and bargain hunters who appreciated the store's quirky layout and unpredictable product assortment.

Family patriarch Edward Goodman, who founded Goodman Lumber Company in 1931, opened three locations: the Bayshore Boulevard outlet, Goodman Building Supply in Mill Valley, Calif. (now owned by Richard Harris, a family cousin), and Discount Builders Supply in the Mission District of San Francisco. Although Charles Goodman learned the business from his father, the two men had a falling out before Edward Goodman's death in 1990. Joan Goodman Zimmerman inherited the Bayshore Boulevard real estate, while her brother and a second sister, Gloria Clumeck, retained a controlling interest in the home center.

The other San Francisco store and property are owned equally by the three siblings, according to Charles Goodman, who plans to continue working there. Most of the Bayshore Boulevard inventory will be liquidated, and the leftover merchandise will be transferred to the Discount Builders Supply store on Mission Street. Almost 150 employees will lose their jobs when the Bayshore Boulevard store closes, according to Goodman.

"This is one of the last true independents out there, and we're not going [out of business] at the hands of Home Depot," Goodman observed.

Ironically, Home Depot, which operates nearly 30 stores in the Bay area, may have finally secured a site for its first store in the city of San Francisco -- right on Bayshore Boulevard. The San Francisco Chronicle reported on April 14 that the Atlanta retailer is negotiating with the city to demolish the old Schlage lock factory so it can build a 115,000-square-foot warehouse outlet.

Former Builders Discount site may be home to new Depot

LOS ANGELES -- Builders Discount's the 180,000-square-foot retailer on West Pico Boulevard here, may be replaced by a Home Depot. The Atlanta-based Depot has been negotiating with the City of Los Angeles and the owner of Builders Discount, Levi Kushnir, to take over this property and reopen a home center as part of an urban redevelopment project.

Builders Discount, which was founded in 1958, closed at the end of March. It was one of the first large-format home centers to cater to urban customers with a low-price, no-frills approach. Among contractors, Builders Discount was known as a cash-and-carry operation. "All sales were final," recalled a nearby competitor.

Builders Discount suffered, however, as Home Depot and HomeBase permeated Los Angeles County. In 1992 it closed two of its three stores and, in October of that year, filed bankruptcy.

Kushnir, a co-founder and, until last year, the chairman of Home Centers DIY Ltd., Israel's largest home improvement retailer, told NHCN in 1999 that he was returning to the United States to devote more of his time to making Builders Discount more competitive. He hinted that he might try a new format, although Kushnir did not provide any details.

That idea is apparently dead. Edward Saulet, a project manager for the Community Redevelopment Agency for the City of Los Angeles, told NHCN that Depot may lease or buy the property from Kushnir.