The furniture company plans to build a store in Parkway Village

GRANTS PASS — Industry changes led Joseph Winans Furniture Co. to leave Grants Pass in 1992.

Now, 13 years later, market forces are bringing the Medford company back.

Joseph Winans is building a stand-alone store at the new Parkway Village, on 5½ acres where Agnew Park stood before 1987. The single-story, 15,000-square-foot store will be part of an overall 67,000-square-foot shopping mall developed by Terry and Ginny Stegemiller.

"Right now, we are doing a good business with Grants Pass customers," says owner Joe Pedrojetti.

"But the advantage of being there is not only Grants Pass, but the coast business — it really expands your market."

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From April 1987 to July 1992 Winans had a physical presence in a decidedly smaller market.

It was in the early 1990s when Thomasville Furniture Industries required its dealers to set aside 10,000 square feet for its products in every store. So Pedrojetti bought the building across from his West Main Street store in Medford, closed the Grants Pass store and created a regional Thomasville Gallery.

"We sold the store on Sixth Street and the regional things worked out great," Pedrojetti says.

But change is continual in the furniture industry.

Thomasville dropped its requirements, Italian leather is in and Pedrojetti would like a bigger slice of the Josephine and Curry County furniture sales pie.

"What has happened, when you break down the pie is that most people, the majority, are looking for medium-quality to lower-end quality," he says. "But we’re developing a pretty affluent demographic here and they want the quality things. Gates Furniture does a great job over there, but we want to provide the community with a more quality choice. Gates does quite a bit of business on the coast, but not nearly what we should be doing."

Pedrojetti says the store will employ about 10 people — compared with 35 in Medford — but add little additional administrative or warehouse cost.

Pedrojetti says he’s hoping the store can open by the end of August, but delays in roof trusses will likely push that to September.

The Stegemillers planned for 13,000 square feet of office space before Joe and Frances Pedrojetti signed a five-year lease with an option to buy for a slightly larger space last December. The Pedrojettis also persuaded the developers to change the exterior from a half-timbered appearance to a more Mediterranean look.

Ginny Stegemiller says she and her husband were still searching for the shopping center’s identity when Pedrojetti approached them.

"So many people go to Medford with their retail shopping dollars," Stegemiller says. "When Joseph Winans came to us, it absolutely filled one of our shopping center’s needs and one for our town. They really helped to define our shopping center."

It also fit the present market conditions for the Medford furniture dealer.

"Everything is good about this," Joe Pedrojetti says. "I wouldn’t do it if wasn’t good."

Reach reporter Greg Stilesat 776-4463 or e-mail business@mailtribune.com.

Couple sees bright future in indoor mall

It took five years to find a new home and this time around, they hope to stay within the same walls at Parkway Village, Josephine County’s first indoor mall.

The Stegemillers paid Fourply Inc. $1.5 million for the property then broke ground in August on the $6 million 67,000-square-foot shopping center on the southwest corner of Grants Pass Parkway and F Street. The 17,000-square-foot Sears and Cellular Etc. opened this month. They were joined by Mothers to Be, Long River Family Steak House, Tanning Temptations, HairMasters salon, Countrywide Home Loans and Gooseberries.

"We’re 90 percent full," says Ginny Stegemiller. "And the phone doesn’t stop ringing."