New furniture store opens in old Santa Maria Costco building
Dave Alley
SANTA MARIA, Calif. (KEYT) – A new furniture store has at last filled the long-vacant building that was the former home of Costco in Santa Maria.
Furniture Land officially opened for business inside the highly-visible building that is located along South Bradley Road, right off of Highway 101.
“It’s big for us and a big finally we’re open,” said co-owner Wail Ibrahim. “It’s big for the community because everybody’s been patiently waiting for our doors to open up here. It took a lot of planning, took a lot of time, but with everybody’s help, we finally did it.”
The opening completed a long renovation process inside the building that began last year.
Furniture Land, which also owns four other sites, all located in the Central Valley – two in Bakersfield, one each in Fresno and Visalia, has completed transformed the 100,000 square foot building into a modern showroom that ownership said is unlike any other in the immediate area.
“We brought the biggest, furniture showroom and all of Santa Barbara County and San Luis Obispo County,” said Ibrahim. “When somebody walks in the door, they’re going to see the best priced furniture in all of Santa Barbara County and San Luis Obispo County. We offer appliances. We actually have a huge mattress section as well. With the amount of manufacturers that we have that we carry, and with all the appliances, all the top brand appliances, and all the top brand mattresses, our goal is to make this place a one-stop shop place for your home.”
Situated between Stowell Road and Betteravia Road, the shopping area where Furniture Land is located has suffered over the past several years since Costco left.
The old Costco building has been closed since 2017 when the businesses moved a few blocks south down Bradley Road.
Now that its occupied once again, Ibrahim believes Furniture Land, which features a 70,000 square foot showroom, will benefit all of the nearby businesses located in the busy commercial corridor that runs adjacent to the freeway.
“It brings new energy to the city and new energy to the to the plaza and new life to this empty parking lot here that was vacant for for many years,” said Ibrahim. “We’ll help to actually bring in extra traffic to the plaza. It’s going to help out our neighboring businesses and is something new, something that the city does not have already, which is a massive showroom for furniture, and just bringing in new energy and a new life to this empty parking lot here that was actually pretty dark for many years.”
While the business is now open, Furniture Land will hold an official grand opening and ribbon cutting sometime in the near future.
“We’re very happy to be here in San Maria,” said Ibrahim. “We couldn’t have done it without the support from the city and the whole community. We just want to say thank you. Thank you, Santa Maria.”
Ibrahim added the new business will employ at least 25 people and likely will add more in the future.
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