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August 31, 2021

Home improvement store coming to region

PHOTO | CONTRIBUTED
By Maureen Lynch

The pandemic gave everyone an excuse to spend quality time at home. Now, after staring at the same spaces for over a year, it’s probably time to change things up. Soon, a new store is coming to New Haven County that can meet all decorating needs.

At Home, a franchise which specializes in home décor, recently announced plans to open its second store in Connecticut in the North Haven Commons.

There is one currently located in Manchester. The new big box store will be moving into the storefronts formerly occupied by Toys-R-Us, Babies-R-Us and Ulta Cosmetics on Universal Drive. 

The renovations should take a few months to complete. According to Carey Marin, acting head of public relations for At Home, the store is expected to include around 100,000 square feet of home décor products.

“[The project] will put in a giant retailer… and it will fill 80,000 square feet of vacant space,” said Michael Freda, First Selectman of North Haven. “Wherever [At Home is]… they tend to be great generators, consumer generators because of their size, their impact, over 55,000 products…”

At Home, founded in Texas, has been expanding rapidly over the past few years. It started out as Garden Ridge Pottery; a single store based in San Antonio in 1979. However, after the company went bankrupt, it was purchased by AEA Investors, and the company was rebranded.

Ever since 2011 the company has added locations in 40 states, and seems to be growing.

“At Home sells over 50,000 home décor items for every room, every style and every budget,” said Marin.

At Home stores are typically set up similarly to a warehouse to allow for the expanse of products they carry. The store continuously gets new merchandise to keep up with the latest trends.

“At Home, the home décor superstore, is a unique home décor concept that offers the biggest in-store selection of home décor styles at an incredible value,” said Marin.

The retailer will help to stabilize the North Haven Commons and open up new possibilities for the shopping hub.  

“[At Home] is an incredibly stable national retailer, which is critical to [the North Haven Commons],” said Freda, “…[it] will galvanize the rest of the businesses there.”

Freda said he anticipates the project will not be finished until late in the spring of 2022.

However, Marin could not comment on the timeline.

Until the new store opens, shoppers can visit the Manchester location at 1181 Tolland Turnpike, Manchester. The hours are Mondays through Saturdays 9 a.m.-10 p.m. and Sundays from 9 a.m.-9 p.m.

Maureen Lynch is an intern for New Haven Biz.

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