Rising tide at Harbor Point

In a rare instance of a cross-country relocation to Connecticut, furniture retailer Design Within Reach Inc. is moving its headquarters from San Francisco to Stamford”™s Harbor Point development, even as Louis Dreyfus Highbridge Energy hightails west to Harbor Point from Wilton.

It marked only the latest corporate relocation to accelerating growth at Harbor Point, including the opening this week of Fairway supermarket adjacent to the Yale & Towne converted factory building Design Within Reach is taking for its headquarters and new retail “studio.” Other marquee tenants include Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc., which plans to move from White Plains in just over a year”™s time; and McKinsey & Co., which is relocating a Stamford office there.

Under developer Building and Land Technology, Harbor Point ultimately is to include several commercial office buildings, a hotel, and some 4,000 units of housing. In late October, BLT held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for its second major residential building at Harbor Point.

Working together to attract companies
BLT CEO Carl Kuehner III called it a great example of how his company and Stamford can work together to lure companies even from great distances to the mixed-use development rising in the city”™s South End.

“DWR continues to speak to the economic diversification of Stamford and the city”™s ability to attract leading consumer products companies both in headquarters as well as their retail operations,” said Mayor Mike Pavia, in a prepared statement.

Louis Dreyfus Highbridge Energy is taking 66,000 square feet of space for 15 years beginning next summer. The company cited the building”™s proximity to Stamford”™s train station as one rationale for the move.

Design Within Reach, meanwhile, opened a retail store “studio” in the Yale & Towne building below its headquarters offices where it plans to employ 65 people.
“It came down to a lot of things for us ”“ the vibrancy of this development, the speed it”™s happening at,” said John McPhee, chief operating of Design Within Reach. “Certainly Starwood”™s decision to come here happened right when we were thinking about it. We have a lot of people that will be commuting out of (New York City), and that”™s an easy commute.

“There are the antiques people and the vintage people that have been down here for years,” McPhee said. “We”™re just really trying to make sure we are known as the very best company for design.”

CEO John Edelman and McPhee are moving the company to Fairfield County even as they are knee-deep in an attempted turnaround of Design Within Reach, which counts both homeowners and commercial clients like hotel chains in its customer base; as well as the producers of the television program Mad Men, which features the company”™s products. 

Another big-name furniture company
In its relocation to Stamford, Fairfield County gets another big-name furniture company in addition to Danbury-based Ethan Allen Interiors Inc. and Norwalk-based Lillian August ”“ not to mention LoveSac Corp., which like Design Within Reach is attempting a retail store expansion ”“ and which itself came east to Stamford, from Utah.

“It is really incredible the level of activity we are seeing in the local design community right now,” said Zvi Laurence Cole, a Norwalk-based marketing consultant who counts LoveSac among his clients.

Edelman, a resident of Ridgefield, was named CEO of Design Within Reach last January. Previously he ran Edelman Leather, a supplier of leather to home furnishings companies, selling the business in 2007 to East Greenville, Pa.-based Knoll Inc.

Last year, Design Within Reach delisted its shares from the Nasdaq; in the first half of 2009, the last period in which it published results, Design Within Reach sales were down by nearly a third to $65 million, and the company reported a $13.4 million loss for the period. In August 2009, Design Within Reach raised $15 million in new capital, which McPhee said staved off a potential bankruptcy.

The Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development is providing up to $1.5 million in tax credits through the Urban and Industrial Sites Reinvestment Tax Credit program.  The program provides tax credits on investments made in urban or industrial sites.