HUBBARD, Ohio – A North Main Street building that housed a furniture store for more than 100 years has a new owner.
Scott Lewis, vice president of Edward J. Lewis Inc., said Cocca Development of Boardman bought the former Stewart Furniture building, 19 N. Main St., for $175,000. Lewis handled the sale.
The company’s CEO, Anthony Cocca, was raised in Hubbard, graduated from Hubbard High School and has a “soft spot” for the community, Lewis said.
“Cocca Development is a very successful development company,” Lewis said. “They’re actually building coast to coast. They’re in almost every state …”
He added that the company is looking for “a few good tenants” for the North Main Street building.
The three-story building boasts 10,744 square feet. A warehouse on a corner lot across the street, which also was part of the sale, spans 1,380 square feet.
C.R. Stewart established Stewart Furniture in 1918. In the early 1970s, Haber’s Furniture Co. bought the store. It closed shortly thereafter, and the building sat empty until 1976 when employees Mitzi and Ray Sarisky bought it, according to Business Journal files.
Mitzi had started working at the business after she graduated high school in 1942. Ray joined the business after World War II. They kept the Stewart name at the request of the founder’s son.
The Sarisky children, Sally Severa, Polly Jones and Mark Sarisky, owned the store after their parents. They retired last fall and put the building up for sale.
Lewis said another buyer initially expressed interest in the building, but that sale didn’t work out.
“So on the second time around, when we shared with Anthony Cocca that it was available, it closed lickety split – in less than 20 days,” he said.