Levitz opens for local business

Gretchen Hoffman

After sitting vacant for more than a year, the former HomeLife

Furniture store on Central Avenue is filled with furniture again.

Levitz Furniture took over HomeLife’s lease and opened its doors

Wednesday at 314 Central Ave.

It is the most recent showroom in a deal that has the 92-year-old

furniture company taking over about 20 of the Sears spin-off’s former

locations, Levitz area manager Henrik Stepanyan said.

“We are expanding, and the HomeLife stores were already a

furniture showroom,” Stepanyan said.

HomeLife, which at its peak had 130 stores in 26 states and was

the eighth-largest furniture retailer in the country, abruptly closed

up shop in July 2001. Sears founded the store in the late 1980s then

sold the majority of the chain to Citicorp Venture Capital in 1998.

The Glendale location differs from the 15 other West Coast

locations Levitz has recently opened in that the showroom on Central

Avenue will carry discontinued lines of furniture.

“It’s all outlet,” Stepanyan said. “Living rooms, dining rooms,

everything.”

Levitz was founded in 1910 in Lebanon, Penn.