Turner Furniture to open stores near Thomasville

BEACHTON — The Turner Furniture Company has announced plans to open two new stores in the Beachton community, which is located between Thomasville and Tallahassee, Fla.

The Turner’s Fine Furniture and Turner’s Budget Furniture stores are set to open in early June, said Wade Young of Turner Furniture public relations.

The new stores will also bring some much needed relief to job markets in Tift, Thomas and Grady counties and Leon County in Florida. Young said Turner Furniture projects 30 to 40 new positions will need to be filled in the new locations with 10 new jobs opening up in Tifton as well.

“The new stores will require support staff to be hired at the Turner’s Distribution Center in Tifton,” Young said. “The Georgia Department of Labor is handling all of our pre-application process.”

Positions for warehouse workers, customer service workers, furniture repair technicians and delivery drivers are currently posted on the Georgia Department of Labor’s Web site.

“Since the stores will be so close to Tallahassee we are hoping to also pull qualified applicants from the job market in Florida,” said Young.

Turner Furniture representatives said the 95-year-old company was not as hard hit by the economic recession as most other furniture companies were.

“We weren’t planning on expanding, things just kind of fell into place,” Young said. “Everything seemed to be going in that direction.”

Young said Tallahassee is Turner Furniture’s biggest source for demand and that demand for the company’s products has risen to 40 percent in the area.

“A lot of the other furniture stores have pulled out of that area in the last few years and it left a big vacuum,” he said.

Turner Furniture currently has seven locations in Georgia, including Albany, Moultrie, Tifton and Valdosta.