OW Office Warehouse to open 35 units - O.W. Office Warehouse Inc - Specialty Store Focus

Discount Store News, April 1, 1991

OW Office Warehouse to Open 35 Units

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. -- OW Office Warehouse plans to double the superstore chain's size by opening 23 units thiss year, including expansion into four new states: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia and Ohio.

The new stores will increase OW Office Warehourse's growing direct competition with a number of other major superstore operators. The paucity of markets without discount office supply retailers only illustrates the potential growth of the industry and the dominant position being carved out by a handful of chains.

OW Office Warehouse will kick off its expansion next month by opening the first of three stores planned for Cleveland and its sixth in Philadelphia. The following month it will debut in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., and Little Rock, Ark., while opening its second unit in Charlotte, N.C., and its fourth in Hampton Roads, Va., its home base.

Other stores set to open in the following months include two in Charleston, S.C. and first in Fayetteville, N.C., a seventh in Philadelphia, and second in Raleigh, N.C.

President Michael Rouleau said, "with 27 leases already signed, we are assured of reaching out goal for 1991 [of operating 46 stores]."

Wilkes-Barre and Fayetteville are the only new markets where the chain won't face other superstore operators. It already competes with Staples in Philadelphia and Office Depot and Office America in Charlotte and will go against this duo when it enters Alabama at an undisclosed site. Office Depot will also be the competition when OW Office Warehouse enters Little Rock, Ark., Charleston, S.C., and undisclosed location in Georgia, while Office America is the opposition in Raleigh. Other competitors include Office Max in Ohio and Staples in Philadelphia.