Bizbeat: Hardware stores grow as sales grow

It isn't all gloom and doom for local hardware stores.

Despite the rise of big-box hardware retailers, several smaller hardware stores are opening or expanding this year in Dakota County and elsewhere, displaying the hardware industry's traditional resistance to recessions and resilience after them, local and industry officials said.

Sales are 50 percent above expectations since Frattallone's Ace Hardware opened in March in a remodeled Wickes store in Burnsville's Burnhill Plaza, perhaps reflecting pent-up demand. It's the city's first local hardware since Al's True Value closed about 10 years ago, said Daron Van Helden, president of the Burnsville Chamber of Commerce.

"In a hardware you can find every nut and bolt you'd ever want," Van Helden said, adding that can be a struggle at a big box store such as Menards or Home Depot, which the city also offers. "To regain a local hardware store is great asset to community," he said.

Like the hardware industry in general, Frattallone's wasn't hurt much by the recession, which hit in 2008 and 2009, said co-owner Mike Frattallone. In fact, the Arden Hills-based business has opened six new metro-area stores in the past five years, including one last year in Bloomington, he said. In 2010, the company opened stores in Mahtomedi, Columbia Heights and uptown Minneapolis, Frattallone said. He noted that the soft commercial leasing market spawned by the recession enabled Frattallone's to open its 17th store in a high-end location near Burnsville Mall with a 30-year lease.

Frattallone's also doubled the space in its old Woodbury hardware this year to about 1,200 square feet. That nearly doubled sales since the renovation was finished in March.

"People take care of their home more when they are less certain about the future," Frattallone said. "They may not go to Aruba, but they will fix their toilet ... Ironically, our best years for Weber grills and Toro lawnmowers were 2009 and 2010."

"Even in a difficult economy our dealers tend to do all right," said Steve Draeger, president of United Hardware Distribution, a cooperative in Plymouth that supplies independent hardware stores in Minnesota and the Upper Midwest.

He said many of his hardware stores had flat sales, but few lost money during the recession and few stores closed because of poor sales.

"Our guys do well on the repair and maintenance side that never seems to go away," Draeger said.

Success isn't universal, however. West St. Paul lost its last two local hardware stores last year when Suburban Ace and Langula Hardware Hank closed their doors. The city has a Menards, a Lowe's and a Home Depot.

Nationally, the hardware industry has been consolidating gradually for about 20 years, said Dan Tratensek, an executive who supervises market research for the North American Retail Hardware Association in Indianapolis. He said the pace of hardwares closing increased a bit during the recession, but has since slowed. The association estimates that the number of hardware stores will drop from 19,940 in 2010 to 19,890 in 2015.