By Amanda Baillie
Herald/Review

SIERRA VISTA — The city’s oldest furniture store is to have a new owner, marking the end of an era in Sierra Vista’s retail history.

Long time businessman Jeff Hass has decided to sell Atlas Furniture on North Garden Avenue, along with its sister store Gallery Furniture on Fry Boulevard. The two west end businesses are being bought by the owners of Thomas Home Furnishings, which already has a location at The Mall at Sierra Vista.

Atlas Furniture was originally started by Hass’s father Jack in the mid-1950s and is the oldest retail member of the Greater Sierra Vista Area Chamber of Commerce.

Hass said he had mixed feelings about letting the stores go, but believed he had made the right decision.

“I’m going to be 60 soon and so I decided I wanted to something different with my life,” he said.

Hass said he believed he was the first furniture store owner in Sierra Vista to sell his business.

“All the others have just failed or gone away, rather then be sold,” he said.

He added that the sale of the two stores does not mark his retirement, although he plans to take a couple of months off. “I have other business ventures,” he said. “But I plan to do a lot more flying and fishing and my wife has a lot of work for me.”

Hass, who had been considering selling his businesses for about a year, said he believed the stores would be in good hands with their new owners. “I think they will add a new dimension to Sierra Vista,” he said, adding that he had made a deal with Thomas Home Furnishings after learning the company was in “an acquisition phase.”

Bill Thomas Jr., who owns Thomas Home Furnishings with his father, said, “We’ve been in Sierra Vista for nine or 10 years and were looking to expand. In fact, our original location was in the Gallery Furniture building and we are happy to be moving back there.”

The company has a store in Douglas, also its headquarters, one in Casa Grande and now three in Sierra Vista.

Thomas said the sale had yet to be finalized and that it was too soon to talk about future plans for the two new locations. But he added they would still be run as furniture stores for the foreseeable future, retaining the 17 staff employed by Hass.

herald/review reporter Amanda Baillie can be reached at 515-4683 or by e-mail at amanda.baillie@svherald.com.