While the furniture department had been selling through merchandise fairly quickly (at least, as quickly as could be expected seeing as it's old floor-model stuff that's probably rather difficult to transport from this spot), the old office furniture across the actionway wasn't moving at all. That's another thing that seems obvious in this day and age (I'm sure the market is flooded with used office furniture thanks to so many places switching to long-term work-from-home), but maybe less so in pre-pandemic days (though I wonder if there was ever that big of a market for old office furniture...).
Filing cabinet technology really hasn't changed much and new office quality filing cabinets are quite expensive. If the price and condition was right, I could see some people wanting to buy those. The problem with those might be that they don't have the right keys for them. If that's the case, someone would probably have to put new locks on them which might be expensive.
ReplyDeleteOf course, the promise of paperless offices was being popularized in the 1990s and I'm not quite sure if we're there yet, lol. Granted, I'm guessing most offices don't need as many filing cabinets as they might have at one time.
My father purchased some old metal office desks for the garage decades ago. They make for surprisingly good garage furniture if you're ever interested in such things. I don't know where my father got those desks from though. I doubt they were from a liquidating retail store. If they were, they were probably from a Woolco, Globe, Sage, FedMart, or something like that, lol.
On an unrelated note, I came across a blog post about the Mall 205 in Portland. That's an interesting name for a mall. Anyway, the anchors at that Mall were Montgomery Ward, who was giving away an AMC Gremlin at the grand opening sale, and an appliance (and electronics) store called White Front. It seems that White Front was in California, Portland, and Seattle at the very least. They might have gotten their name by lining up washers, stoves, and so forth at the front of the store. I had never heard of them before and I was wondering if you knew anything about them.
https://mall205.blogspot.com/2011/12/mall-205-opens-in-1970.html
Honestly, I don't know much about office furniture, but it is crazy how expensive things could be -- back when we were still in the office, there was some discussion about ordering new chairs (I don't remember the specifics), and it turned out the uncomfortable chairs we were using (the cheapest ones available) cost something like $500! I'm sure part of that is due to being locked into contracts with furniture suppliers, but still.
DeleteRegarding White Front, I don't know much about it beyond what's on Wikipedia (it's on the long list of things I should really research but haven't ever gotten around to), but that does mention the name being due to appliances in the front of the stores. It sounds like the Mall 205 (named for I-205) location was the only one on Portland, but they had quite a few stores in the Seattle area, most of which are now Fred Meyer stores (after having changed hands quite a few times -- another thing I need to research is the history of Fred Meyer's Seattle-area stores, since so many of them were taken over from now-dead chains). Their original store in Seattle (which I recently learned was built on land that White Front bought from my great-grandfather, and where my mom lived for a short time as a baby) later became a Kmart and now an Asian Food Center, with a former Albertsons later added next door -- I have a bunch of stuff about that store here (though it's mostly focused on the Albertsons).
Oh, yes, those office furniture companies like Herman Miller and Steelcase make a lot of money! Or at least they did, I'm guessing the work from home trend isn't so good for them. But, yeah, I know there are a lot of used office furniture stores in Houston. Most of those stores probably aren't too interested in stuff as old as what Macy's had, but the high cost of office furniture does mean there is a market for used items. I suppose these companies can charge so much because there are only a few trusted brands and they know businesses will pay a lot for furniture.
DeleteI probably should have checked Wikipedia first about White Front. I expected them to be some small, short-lived operation, but it seems like they were quite a major retailer for a while. I'm surprised I had not heard of them given that, but as you know, a lot of NW retail is a secret to the rest of the country.
White Front seemed like much more than just an appliances & electronics store. It sounds like even some of their earliest NW stores had supermarkets that might have been sold to Safeway. As it relates to this thread, the Everett Mall White Front became a Bon Marché/Macy's before closing. The Tacoma store became a Valu-Mart/Leslie's (which is seemingly another interesting NW retailer I had never heard of), then a Jafco, then a Best Products, and now a Michael's. As you say, some White Fronts ended up as Fred Meyers and there is the Kmart as well.
I know it's a small photo, but did you see the outside of that Mall 205 White Front on the right side column on that blog post above? That was one colorful store! Of course, maybe that was to be expected given the 1969-1970 time frame that the Mall 205 opened.
It sounds like you have an interesting history with White Front. I might be the only one, lol, but I would be interested if you ever put something together about the history of these retailers and what became of their stores. I suppose you could steal Retail Retell's blog theme and call it the Lost Histories of NW Retail, lol.
Yeah, there's certainly a lot of history there! There's a long, tangled series of different discount chains that mostly ended up becoming part of Fred Meyer, which has been at the top of my list to research, for, oh, about the last 3 years. So far nothing has come of that, but that needs to change eventually! There are so many former discount chains in the region that I know barely anything about even after trying to research this for a while now.
DeleteOh, and yes, that is a very colorful store, to say the least! That's quite a cool style, with the bright colors and big arch on the front -- I wish there were still stores like that these days.