New tile showroom opening on the avenue

by Samuel Frost
Posted 10/20/21

Garden State Tile is relocating its Philadelphia showroom from Center City to Chestnut Hill, on the east side corner of Germantown and Moreland avenues, just up the street from Staples.

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New tile showroom opening on the avenue

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Garden State Tile is relocating its Philadelphia showroom from Center City to Chestnut Hill, on the east side corner of Germantown and Moreland avenues, just up the street from Staples.

The new store, which will feature design consultants for residential as well as commercial interiors, will open late this year or early 2022.

“We have people who specialize in different things, but the showroom that’s going to be at 7800 Germantown Ave. is really going to be focused mainly on the residential client and one-on-one service,” said showroom sales director Valerie Hutchinson. “We really take the customer from start to finish, and whether we’re dealing directly with the homeowner or a designer or a custom builder, we bring everybody on to that full kind of design process.”

As a local business in Chestnut Hill, the company is looking forward to participating in festivals such as Second Saturdays, Hutchinson said. “The showroom will be open as if it’s a gallery to walk through and see all of the tiles. Then we offer design consultations by appointment, so we can always follow up with that.”

“Supporting other local businesses and our local homeowners has always been a big priority,” said communications director Nikki Savard. “More importantly, we always realize that we’re only where we are because of the support and relationships we were able to build within the community.”

The family-run company started in 1957, and now has 15 locations, with 12 showrooms, two distribution centers, and their corporate office.” They chose Chestnut Hill because the community suits the company’s boutique-like service.

“There are so many similar businesses in Chestnut Hill, whether it’s interior designers or beautiful furniture and housewares stores, and it’s just really nice to be within that whole creative community on Chestnut Hill,”  said Hutchinson.

“We’re really hoping that our location can serve all of Philadelphia and the suburbs with an easy location for people to get to, and hopefully it brings more design-minded people into the Chestnut Hill community so we can thrive with all of the other businesses and boutiques.”

The company imports many of its tiles from Italy and Spain, but many also are sourced domestically from Tennessee. Like most other companies, Garden State Tile has had its share of struggles and opportunities throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Anybody in the industry now will tell you that there could be some issues with extended lead times and materials, and we’re very fortunate that we do have a large array of made-in-the-U.S.A. products, so we’ve been able to mitigate that by really tapping into our domestic sources,” Savard said.

At the same time, she said, “so many people spent so much time in their homes just looking at everything they didn’t love, and now everyone has so many great ideas and so many changes they want to make.”

Ed. Note: This story was updated. An earlier version said there were 12 locations. There are 15.