Mohawk, Capel renew AmericasMart deals

By Cecile B. Corral -- Home Textiles Today, 5/27/2002 12:00:00 AM

ATLANTA —

Mohawk Home and Capel Inc. — each a domestic manufacturer and importer of area rugs — renewed their leases last month at the AmericasMart in downtown Atlanta. Both companies, each with a large showroom on the sixth floor, signed on for another five years.

Mohawk Home, based in Sugar Valley, GA, has been at its space for more than 20 years, and Capel, based in Troy, NC, has occupied its showroom for 36 years.

"When we started in Atlanta it was really a broadloom market and we were one of the few area rug companies exhibiting there," Kea Capel Meacham, director of marketing and creative services, told HTT. "Today, Atlanta represents a market where major department store groups who are very focused on the rug category go, unlike New York City or High Point. If you are a player at the Atlanta market, it means you are a major rug supplier in the world and a major resource."

Concurring was Bill Kilbride, president of Mohawk Home, who told HTT that the AmericasMart is "the destination for U.S. and international rug buyers who focus on the category, as opposed to New York City, where you get retailers of all levels looking for a wider range of product."