Dormia has 20 of its own stores in nine states including Florida, Ohio and North Carolina. It said the retail locations would remain open during the Chapter 11 proceedings. The CIT Group in New York has provided financing for continuing operations. A promotion company will likely be hired to run a going-out-of-business sale, Zippelli said.
Three stores, in New Jersey and New York, were previously shut down.
Zippelli said sales at some stores, including locations in Tampa and Cincinnati, remain strong. Some of those stores may be sold off or franchised to Dormia employees.
In the Chapter 11 process, Dormia will try to retain as many Jessup employees as possible. It has close to 60 workers in the mattress plant plus 20 to 25 at the administrative level. Some accounting staffers have been let go, he said. Another 50 employees staff the Dormia stores, which are generally housed inside malls.
Mattress retailers such as New York-based Sleepy's and Connecticut-based Bob's Discount Furniture remain strong distributors of Dormia-made beds, Zippelli said. About 75 percent of those beds are made at the Jessup plant, while the rest, primarily the lower-end ones that start at $599, are imported from China, he said.
"The low-end business is strong," Zippelli said. "We still have $4,500 mattresses, but there's a shift going on to more what's selling now."
laura.mccandlish@baltsun.com
