Bomberger’s Ace Hardware Goes Small, Plans Big

After nearly 25 years working with 65,000 square feet of retail space, the owners of Bomberger’s Ace Hardware thought they would switch gears with the new store.

“This new store is going to be completely different. It’s about 7,500 square feet,” says Bomberger’s CEO Bob Resch. “We tell people that we don’t do anything small, but it was a challenge when we were determining our product mix not to be able to order a skid of everything. That’s something we hadn’t experienced before.”

The new store is the second location for Lititz, Pennsylvania-based Bomberger’s. The original store was founded in 1887 and moved to its current location in 1994. The store has been family-owned and operated since the beginning.

“We’re going into the sixth generation of family members running everyday operations,” says Resch.

The new generation of leadership is one of the reasons Bomberger’s started seeking an expansion opportunity. “We’ve been looking for a secondary location for about two years,” Resch says. “With six owners in the business, we thought we might be bumping into each more than we should with just one store.”

Bomberger’s also thought a new store location would create more opportunities for senior staff members. Rodney Witmer has been the head of the paint department for 15 years. He will be the general manager of the new store in Annville, Pennsylvania, which is about 25 miles from the Lititz location.

Paint will be the dominant department in the new store, so having Witmer at the helm made sense. “Annville needs a paint store,” says Resch. “We were looking for a way to attract female customers, so we will carry high-end paint products and have a knowledgeable staff.” The store will also serve customers looking for general hardware and power equipment.

The company got a lot of support from Ace Hardware from the beginning of the expansion process. A sales representative told Resch about a property that was available and things immediately started moving. “I saw the property on a Friday, and we had an agreement in place within two weeks.”

The property Bomberger’s purchased was previously a furniture store, and Resch was encouraged that the vacant storefront didn’t mean the store went out of business. “They actually moved to a larger retail space,” he says. “We chose Annville because we saw a thriving community.”

Resch’s brother-in-law Todd Bomberger led the renovations for the store, which were mostly general updates. However, two elements had a big effect on the flow of the store. “We transitioned the entrance from the center of the store into a corner entrance,” says Resch. “But the biggest renovation was taking down a center support wall. We installed a large I-beam, so now we only have one support pole in the whole store.”

So far, they have hired about five people to staff the new store, and those associates have been training at the Lititz store for several weeks. In addition to Witmer, another long-term Bomberger’s employee will transition to the new store. The 30-year employee coincidentally bought a house about a mile from the store.

Bomberger’s purchased the property in October and told the renovation contractors that April 1 was the target open date. “Someone mentioned that April 1 is April Fool’s Day, and we thought maybe that wasn’t the best day to open a store, so we bumped it to April 3.”