Garden Ridge Promotes Execs

By Staff -- Home Textiles Today, 10/11/2004 12:00:00 AM

Houston —

Garden Ridge has promoted Jack Lewis to chairman and Steven Higgins to president as part of its turnaround.

Lewis had been CEO. Higgins joined the retailer in May as senior vice president and general merchandise manager.

Said Lewis, “We are all focused on making Garden Ridge a category killer in home décor, and as chairman, I will be able to spend all of my time leading our efforts to that end.”

Garden Ridge, which has been operating under Chapter 11 bankruptcy since February, also said it signed five more lease amendments with landlords. The new lease amendments bring the total of re-negotiated leases to 15. The remaining 20 are in the final stage of negotiations, the company said.

The retailer said it experienced a slight decline in September sales but improved its gross margin by 0.2 percent. Comps were down slightly at 1.6 percent.

Said Higgins, “Hurricane Ivan hurt our sales in three markets, and we experienced delays in merchandise deliveries.” He added that the company's performance is continuing to improve in domestics, furniture, art and housewares.