Big retail ideas that briefly landed in mid-sized cities and then quietly moved on are fascinating to me. Places like that tend to leave behind oversized buildings, bold promises, and a paper trail full of optimism. Muncie’s Value City Furniture is one of those stories. For a short time in the 1970s, it represented modern retailing at full throttle!
Muncie’s Value City Furniture came online on December 3, 1971. Its grand opening was a real event, featuring Garland Miller, administrative assistant to Mayor Paul Cooley; J. Roberts Dailey, president of the Muncie-Delaware County Chamber of Commerce; Lynette Hazelbaker, Muncie Junior Miss; Jerome Schottenstein, president of Value City; and Marshal Kaplan, the store’s manager1.
Value City’s opening led to five prizes for lucky shoppers. The first was a $569.95 Corvair 3-piece living room set. Second prize was a $489.95 Whirlpool Washer and Dryer. The third-place winner won a $379.95 RC whirlpool double door refrigerator, and whoever came in fourth claimed a $369.95 Columbus Stove Eye-Level Gas Range. Fifth place won a $229.95 Burris DeLuxe Recliner Chair2.
Muncie’s 150,000-square-foot Value City combined a massive showroom with a warehouse that was completely mechanized. That led to efficiencies that other furniture outlets couldn’t match. That said, Value City also featured 400 model rooms furnished in “every imaginable period or style3.”
It wasn’t long until Muncie’s Value City ran into trouble, though. In 1975, officials announced that a Midwest department store would take over the building but declined to name the chain. As Value City declined to renew its lease, all of its inventory was liquidated4.
Unfortunately, negotiations with whatever department store Value City officials hoped for never worked out. After a year, Value City reopened half of its sprawling store. The other half was put up for lease, since officials described the original store as too big for a city the size of Muncie5.
The abbreviated store didn’t last. It closed “as quickly as possible6” during the summer of 1985, as Value City’s parent company in Columbus, Ohio, sold the building to the Muncie Reclamation and Supply Company7. The organization recovered, rebuilt, and resold parts for buses.
“Muncie has not been a strong town for us,” said a Value City vice president. “Business has been marginal. We’re a large-volume, low-markup operation,” he elaborated. “We can’t make exceptions town to town8.”
It’s been forty years since Muncie’s old Value City Furniture closed. Today, the sprawling building is home to ABC Companies’ Indiana parts distribution center. In the end, the Value City building feels like a snapshot of an era when retail optimism ran big- sometimes bigger than the towns meant to sustain it. The building endures even as its original purposes did not, which serves as a reminder that even short-lived enterprises leave lasting marks on the landscape.
Sources Cited
1 Value City Furniture Store Opens (1971, December 3). The Muncie Evening Press. p. 2.
2 Value City Furniture (1981, December 1). The Muncie Evening Press. p. 10.
3 (See footnote 2).
4 Stack, M. (1975, March 10). Department Store to Move Into Value City’s Building. The Muncie Star. p. 3.
5 Value City to reopen March 18 (1976, March 9). The Muncie Evening Press. p. 3.
6 Francisco, B. (1985, August 23). Value City to Close Store in South Muncie. The Muncie Star. p. 19.
7 (See footnote 6).
8 (see footnote 6).
It was all about timing. By 1971 the industrial midwest and all of East Central indiana was in decline as the manufacturing base began to shrink and people no longer had access tp decent paying jobs with benifits. The same thing happened in Anderson. What is surprising is this place managed to hold on as long as it did.
I agree; I was absolutely surprised to find how long it held on.
Dreamilywhispers beat me to it. The 1974-75 recession was probably the final straw for the original concept and the one from the early 80s (that hit Muncie really hard) was insurmountable. Although it looks like they tried.
They definitely tried!
That’s what I was going to say. Value city was a grand store., when you would walk in, it was beautiful and model setups everywhere and as far as you could see. New modern beautiful furniture but sadly didn’t last long. With all of the factory’s closing down, that left a town without decent paying jobs. And no administration since has been able to truly revitalize (bring in) Muncie with any sufficient number of industrial working jobs. I’ve been here long enough to sadly say as naive as I was thinking it would get get better, because most people are good there hasn’t been an administration onboard that hasn’t let greed rule them. Therefore we are still a poor struggling town since we’ve lost all of our longstanding industrial jobs. I’ve seen people who migrated here from the south to start family’s and were thriving only to have to pack up and return to the south.
I agree with all of the above. Service industry stuff isn’t really cutting it here.