Unfinished Furniture Warehouse to close

By Deborah Gates
FRUITLAND — A family furniture business closes next

month after nearly a quarter century of satisfying customers bent on do-it-yourself wood finishing.
The Unfinished Furniture Warehouse has sprawled across much of the 300 block of North Fruitland Boulevard since 1984, and owner David Morgan says that after 23 years operating the business, he and wife, Pam, are ready to retire.
“I didn’t want to be carried out of the store on a gurney — I wanted to walk out and enjoy retirement,” Morgan said Monday.
March 7 marks the final day for the only known store on the Lower Shore that retails solid wood furniture either unfinished or varnished to order, Morgan said. Unfinished furniture stores also are in Easton and in Lewes, he said.
A slump in the national housing market and on the Lower Shore was not a factor in Morgan’s decision. Contrarily, outsourcing manufacturing to overseas has kept the wholesale price of furniture down.
“Furniture prices have come down in the last two years or so — imported furniture,” he said. “If it’s going up a bit, it’s due to freight and energy cost (increases). But for five years, overall, the price has come down.”
The real estate slump also has not slowed interest in commercial properties, and the Morgans were anxious to cash in on an offer for their property in the Salisbury bedroom community where signs appear promising for retail growth.
In the last five years, at least as many national retail brands have dotted the north-south corridor at the southern doorstep to Salisbury, including Ruby Tuesday’s, Uno Chicago Grill and Wal-Mart. Just recently, Fruitland officials announced the coming of the town’s only national brand hotel, a Hampton Inn, which is planned for a tract just behind the furniture store.
Harder to sell, though, are existing businesses, and why David Morgan said the couple decided to close rather than find a taker for the shop.
The Unfinished Furniture property is under contract with an undisclosed investor who wants to buy the 1.5-acre site and 8,500 square-foot structure — but not the business, said Bradley Gillis, a national advisor at Sperry Van Ness/Miller Commercial Real Estate, who is brokering the deal.
The Morgans came to the Lower Shore from Starkville, Miss., where David Morgan worked in furniture manufacturing and related industries. He owned a residence in Ocean Pines and was familiar with the region.
They decided on Unfinished Furniture because “the region lacked one,” he said.
“Half my career was in finishing, and now I’m selling. I’ve spent a lifetime career in furniture,” David Morgan said.
dgates@dmg.gannett.com