Clint Engel — Furniture Today
CHICAGO — Aronson Furniture will close all nine of its stores here, citing tough business conditions.


The midpriced Chicagoland retailer began going-out-of-business sales at all locations Friday and expects them to wind down by the end of December. There are no plans to file for bankruptcy protection, said Dan Hamburg, Aronson president.

“We’ve run into some very tough business conditions in combination with rising interest rates, which have forced us into the position we are in today,” he said. “Today is a sad day for the Aronson family and its employees.”

Great American Group is handling the GOB sales. Hamburg wouldn’t say how much they are expected generated nor disclose the retailer’s annual volume. Aronson was listed in Furniture/Today’s Beyond the Top 100 report with 10 stores and estimated 2012 sales of $40 million.

Bob Cremer, former Aronson chairman, left the company earlier this fall.

Late last year Aronson rolled out a new-format Aronson Rooms & More store, designed to play up its strengths as a whole-home retailer while broadening its consumer base to include more higher-income shoppers. The plan was to convert all stores to the new name, but the retailer never completed the project.

“We are proud to have served Chicago for 65 years,” Hamburg said.

Aronson is not the first large Chicago-area retailer to stumble this year. This spring, Homewood, Ill.-based Bay Furniture held a cash raising sale as it attempted to find a buyer, but ended up liquidating all stores through the summer. Great American handled that sale as well.