Newport expands facilities

Home Textiles Today Staff -- Home Textiles Today, 3/8/2013 12:10:05 PM

Portland, Ore. - Upon closing 2012 with a 30% increase in sales, longtime decorative pillow and decorative bedding house Newport-Layton home Fashions is enlarging its warehousing and manufacturing space by about 25% here at headquarters.
As company president Corey Faul explained to HTT, "Business has been really very good for us, and we're excited to be expanding our space to support our growth. We feel we have an opportunity now to grow further, but we need more warehouse and production space to make it happen."
The current facility encompasses 120,000 square feet in total, of which 100,000 square feet are occupied by manufacturing and warehouse, and 20,000 square feet houses office space for the staff.
The plan is to add another 25,000 square feet from an adjacent space previously leased by another company.
"We were able to negotiate with the landlord to get that additional space, and now we have the entire building," Faul said.
Of the new space, about 10,000 square feet will go to production and 15,000 will be devoted to warehousing imported and other finished products. Much of the warehouse will be used to store raw materials for dec pillows as well as finished product for bedding and bath.
"Our cut-and-sew business continues to be a real plus for us, and it's growing," he said of Newport's domestic manufacturing side.
Just as the facility is expanding, so is Newport's workforce, which over the past six months grew by 25%, or about 50 factory workers and staff.
For the New York Home Fashions Market, the company is bringing a broad breadth of new products within its categories - dec pillows, top of bed, quilts, and bath coordinates.
In bedding, Newport will be showing 30 new ensembles; in bath, new offerings will encompass 24 accessory groups and 24 shower curtain styles; new quilts in 14 to 16 patterns; and a bevy of new dec pillow styles.
"In dec pillows, we are seeing a tremendous amount of color," Faul said. "We're seeing more color in design and trend than ever before, and with that we're seeing a real spike in prints. Our print business is a real area of growth in pillows. Color, design and trend are more important than ever, and print is such a great way to show color."