The following items were written by reporter Bill Bregar from the International Casual FurnitureMarket, held Sept. 14-18 in Chicago.
Pride Outdoor Products Inc., a Florida-based maker of tubular PVC furniture, has expanded the cushion sewing and cutting operation at its plant in San Jose, Costa Rica.
Jamie Lowsky, vice president of sales and design, said construction of a 25,000-square-foot addition to the plant is under way. That will give the facility about 100,000 square feet of space, he said in an interview at Pride's showroom in the Merchandise Mart.
The Fort Lauderdale, Fla., company also does extrusion and injection molding, and assembles chairs at the Costa Rica plant, Lowsky said.
Pride now puts bar codes on all of its products, a process started two years ago, he said.
Tye-Sil Corp. opens Chicago showroom
Montreal-based furniture molder Tye-Sil Corp. Ltd., has opened a showroom at the Merchandise Mart in Chicago.
The 1,500-square-foot showroom will enable Tye-Sil to have a year-round presence in the Mart, a major market for retail buyers.
Tye-Sil supplies resin and aluminum-frame furniture under the Patio Creations brand. The company does its own injection molding in its 650,000-squarefoot headquarters plant. A separate Montreal plant makes the aluminum chairs.
Besides Chicago and Montreal, Tye-Sil also operates showrooms in Toronto and New York.
The company also sells chairs in Europe.
Casualine expands factory/retail stores
Casualine, which runs 10 combination factory/retail stores in Florida making PVC pipe patio furniture, has expanded beyond the Sunshine State into Georgia.
Casualine recently opened the store in Atlanta, called Atlanta Patio & Fireplace. The Florida outlets are called Palm Casual.
Privately held Casualine, based in Orlando, Fla., also sells furniture to retailers.
The company operates a permanent showroom in the Merchandise Mart.
Grosfillex displays five-position chair
Grosfillex Inc. showed a new five-position slatted armchair. The chair comes in ivory or forest green.
A Palma set, including folding position chairs and monobloc chairs and a table, in ivory, also was introduced. Grosfillex injection molds the furniture at its plant in Robesonia, Pa.
Rovergarden's line used polypropylene
Rovergarden USA Inc., the U.S. arm of the Italian furniture molder, showed its new Ispra line, highlighted by a table that unfolds to store four to six folding chairs.
The table and chairs fit onto a cart for easy storage. The wheeled cart, when not used for storing the chairs, can be used as a serving cart.
Rovergarden manufactures the furniture by coinjecting an outside layer of regular polypropylene and an inside layer of foamed PP.
The Ispra Party set is available in white or black. Rovergarden opened a U.S. office, in East Brunswick, N.J., one year ago.
New markets found for plastic lumber
Polywood Inc., a Syracuse, Ind., company that makes outdoor furniture from plastic lumber, has branced into some new markets with a hexagonal picnic table and a compost bin.
The firm also uses plastic lumber to makes the tools to stir the compost. Also new from Polywood is a large Adirondack chair, a smaller Adirondack rocking chair and two oval tables with matching chairs.
