2 Stores Make Debuts in Tiffany Square Plaza

BOARDMAN, Ohio – Yesterday Gail McCullough was looking forward to having more elbowroom for his employees today.

McCullough is the operator of the new 5,000-square-foot Chick-fil-A Inc. restaurant on an outparcel at the Tiffany Square Plaza, which opened its doors at 6:30 this morning.

Until last Saturday, the Chick-fil-A’s freestanding Boardman store operated just across the road on the southeastern corner of where U.S. Route 224 and South Avenue intersect.

This morning’s opening is just one of two at the redeveloped Tiffany Square Plaza. Ashley HomeStore, a furniture retailer, opened a new store in the plaza a few weeks ago and held a ribbon-cutting Wednesday.

Chick-fil-A is celebrating its opening today with a ribbon cutting as well.

“We just outgrew the old location,” McCullough remarked of the Chick-fil-A. The old store across the street opened in 1997.

The new restaurant features two significant changes, Shelly LaBerto, general manager and marketing director, said. One is a double-lane drive-thru, which will allow the restaurant to serve more customers more quickly.

The single-lane drive-thru at the former store was “kind of cumbersome, hard to manage and hard for the guests to follow,” she added. Cars in line often circled the building and, occasionally, spilled onto Route 224.

The new restaurant also has a larger kitchen, “which means our capacity to grow has just been multiplied,” she noted.

“It’s more modern,” McCullough said. In addition to being larger, the kitchen has a center-line layout that allows cooking on both sides to accommodate greater volume.

“This whole [TIffany Square] plaza is being upgraded and we wanted to be part of that,” he added.

Other new tenants in the plaza, leased by Kutlick Realty LLC, include McDonald’s, which had been where Chick-fil-A built its new store, Hobby Lobby, Marshalls and Fin Feather Fur. Also preparing to open in the plaza is Tuesday Morning.

“This whole center has really developed over the last year and a half,” affirmed Matthew Schultz, co-president of Ashley HomeStore in Erie, Pa. He and his brother, John, the other co-president, are the third generation of the family running the business.

Ashley HomeStore, which Schultz says is the nation’s largest furniture store chain, offers Ashley-manufactured furnishings for every room in the house as well as home accents and mattresses, including brands such as Serta, Tempur-Pedic and Sealy. “We set it up by lifestyle so it creates inspiration and ideas for the customers,” he said.

Another Ashley store had been a half-mile to the west on Route 224 but the company “took the license away and we opened up,” he said.

“It’s been a great location,” he said. “We’ve been open now for a couple of weeks and it’s easy to get to, right off of [Interstate] 680, and we’ve been happy.”

The store, which is about 30,000 square feet, draws from Pittsburgh as well as the local area, he said.

The front third of the store is regularly given a new theme throughout the year. “Next up is ‘Hello, Summer.’ It’s going to be a little bit more coral-themed,” Schultz said. “It always keeps it exciting and fresh.”

Pictured: Shelly LaBerto and Gail McCullough say the new Chick-fil-A will serve more customers more quickly.

Copyright 2024 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.