Moratorium, out-of-town competition are blamed
After 30 years of doing business in Hollister, local furniture
and appliance icon Fortino’s Total Home will soon be closing its
doors as a result of the slowing economy and stagnant housing
market.
Moratorium, out-of-town competition are blamed
After 30 years of doing business in Hollister, local furniture and appliance icon Fortino’s Total Home will soon be closing its doors as a result of the slowing economy and stagnant housing market.
“Two years ago we made a business decision to remain open until this building moratorium was lifted,” owner Phil Fortino said in an email sent to friends and colleagues. “We believed as Hollister recovered we could turn things around and return to a healthy business model even though we would lose money in the interim. Well, no one could foresee the business climate that we are experiencing currently.”
With the lease up for renewal on Fortino’s 30,000-square-foot store at 351 Tres Pinos Road, Phil and his wife Vicki decided not to exercise their option and instead go through a going out of business liquidation, which began this week with a four-day private sale for preferred customers.
“If Hollister and San Benito County don’t do something about attracting employment for residents, we will never have a sustainable local economy,” Phil Fortino told The Pinnacle. “The people that commute leave when it’s dark, get home when it’s dark, and only have weekends to spend time with their families. There is very little sense of community due to time constraints.”
In September 1978, Fortino purchased the former Royal TV and Appliance store and changed the name to Fortino’s Royal TV and Appliance. The store later started selling furniture, and became one of the anchor tenants in the new business center also shared by Kmart.
The business, which employs 17 people, was the first-ever county business of the year and in 2000 was named “Business of the Decade.”
However, the state-imposed building moratorium that started in 2002 and has lasted through this month, took a toll on Fortino’s.
“Vicki and I have agonized over this decision,” Phil Fortino said in a letter he said he plans to send to local newspapers. “We felt that if we could hang on until the moratorium lifted, we could possibly recover our losses and grow our business as Hollister recovered. The crash of the housing market and subsequent U.S. economy has made this strategy impossible. We just can’t continue in this no-growth, negative environment.”
Fortino, who said he and his wife plan to remain in Hollister after the business closes, told The Pinnacle that the national chain stores in Gilroy are a “retail killer for Hollister.”
“While we always have been able to compete with pricing, we can’t compete with the amount of advertising dollars that they generate to maintain top-of-mind awareness with consumers,” he said. “These power centers feed off each other’s ability to draw consumers to their stores and while they are in the area, other stores are visited as well. Hollister just doesn’t have that attraction.”
Vicki Fortino added that “it’s important that people realize we are not going bankrupt and will be here as long as it takes to honor our orders and take care of customer service issues. In fact, we are still taking orders.”
She called the decision a difficult one to make.
“Our only other option to closing was massive layoffs and reduction of square footage,” Fortino said. “Even with that, we couldn’t make it pencil out. And frankly, laying off our valued staff, most of whom have been with us for a decade or more, was not a decision we could live with. This way, our team is able to work throughout the holidays.”
