Fisher to Reopen Shop

By Jorge Casuso

October 26 -- Some seven months after going out of business, Fisher Lumber, one of Santa Monica's oldest establishments, will reopen shop in the city it has called home for 82 years.

Fisher Hardware and Lumber plans to open a much-scaled back version of its old store and lumberyard on November 7 at the corner of Lincoln Boulevard and Colorado Avenue.

"I'm from Santa Monica, born in Santa Monica, all my friends are here," said Fisher's president, Erik Jorgensborg. "I knew there was a market. My customers were complaining. This piece of property came up, and I grabbed it.

“It’s been tough finding a place in Santa Monica that I have some room and is zoned properly,” he said.

The half-acre site, formerly occupied by Earl Scheib Paint & Body, is much smaller than the 3 acres on Colorado and 14th Street that once housed an 11,000-square-foot hardware store and 88,000-square-foot lumber yard.

The new site will accommodate between 5,000 and 6,000 square feet of retail and a 4,000-square-foot lumber yard specializing in molding, finished lumber and decking materials, Jorgensborg said.

"We're going to have to find a niche on what we can serve our customers best," he said. "We still have our windows and doors department."

Locals will no longer have to drive to West LA or Marina del Rey to buy molding, Jorgensborg said. And longtime customers will recognize the eight employees from the old store who will mind the new shop.

With all the traffic congestion around the site, the new store might be harder to get to, but Jorgensborg is confident customers will get used to it and find enough parking in the two 15-space lots.

“They’ll get the hang of it, and I think they’ll get used to the congestion,” Jorgensborg said.

Fisher moved out of its old site on March 31, two years after the parent company, Weyerhaeuser Co. -- a giant wood products conglomerate headquartered in Federal Way, Washington -- announced it was getting out of retail sales. (see related story)

Several lumber companies were interested in taking over the business, but were outbid by developer KC Riverstone, which bought the property in early 2003, then sold it to the City.

The City, which purchased the parcel for $18.5 million, will use the site to expand its adjacent Memorial Park.