Burgans closing, sale pending on store property

Longtime Spokane business Burgans Furniture will sell its buildings on North Division Street and hold a closeout sale, its majority owner announced Tuesday.

The block containing the store, located at 1120 N. Division St., and several smaller structures will be acquired by an undisclosed company, said majority owner Bruce McEachran, president of E.S. Burgan & Son Inc. The new owner might remodel the store and another building but doesn’t plan to operate a furniture outlet on the site, he said.

McEachran declined to disclose details of the pending sale.

Burgans Furniture, once considered a keystone of the furniture store district near Gonzaga University, employs about 40 people. McEachran estimated its inventory is worth about $4 million.

“We’ve been here for a long time, and my family has been involved for a long time; and it is quite frankly the toughest decision I’ve had to make,” said McEachran, 60.

Dates also have not been set for the liquidation sale, but McEachran said the store will close within three months.

“We hopefully will sell all of our furniture; we don’t have any place to put it afterwards,” McEachran said.

Owners had been “looking at doing something with a portion of our property for quite some time,” but occasional offers did not pan out, he said. Then the buyer made an offer that “looked attractive,” especially with McEachran nearing retirement.

“Business has been interesting,” he said. “I don’t know of many furniture stores (where) their sales have increased. … Most everyone that I’ve been in touch with, their sales are declining, and so you change your model.”

Undisclosed Burgans employees will buy E.S. Burgan & Son-owned Capel Rug Gallery, 1321 N. Mullan Road, McEachern said. He shuttered another business, Spear’s Home Furnishings, 1300 N. Argonne Road, in summer 2006.

Burgans founder Edwin S. Burgan and his son, Jesse W. Burgan, brought a general merchandise store to Spokane in the early 1900s. They later hired Bruce McEachran’s grandfather, W.L. McEachran, as treasurer. The four-story store was built in 1921, according to Spokane County records.

Bruce McEachran said he will miss community involvement. Early last year, for example, Burgans donated furniture for a new reading room at Holmes Elementary School.

“We tried to be a good neighbor; we tried to be a good citizen.”