First Posted: 3/25/2012
Shoppers were seen lined up around the block Saturday morning, March 24, for the grand opening of the Boden Outlet Store.
Boden is a London-based clothing company with a call center and warehouse in the CenterPointe Commerce and Trade Park in Jenkins Township.
The company mainly does business through mail-orders, but decided to open an outlet store on weekends in the Open Space, located at 73 S. Main St., Pittston, late last year.
“We decided to open up this outlet store to liquidate our over stock merchandise,” said Wayne Dotter, Boden’s vice president of operations. “The town of Pittston came to us, about a year ago, with the idea of setting up at the Open Space on the weekends to try and draw more traffic into the downtown area, and so far it seems to be working.”
Boden held a soft-opening in December before holding its official grand opening. Despite being open for months, the store was filled on Saturday with a number of satisfied patrons.
“They have nice things in here. What you’ve seen in the catalogue is in the store,” said Carolyn Santiso of Lake Ariel. “I buy stuff through the catalog, and I’ve been down (to the store) before… and I liked what I saw.”
The outlet store’s success in being able to quickly establish a customer base has proved beneficial not only for Boden, but also for neighboring businesses.
“The businesses right around here, their profits are up,” said Pittston Mayor Jason Klush.
Klush, along with former Mayor Mike Lombardo and several others, had a hand in remodeling the Open Space and bringing in Boden.
“Mike Lombardo was actually the key to it, he went to them first, but a lot of us put a lot of time into this,” said Klush. “We remodeled in our spare time, council members, me, Mike, other people donated a lot of materials and time, so it was big all around effort.”
Klush said the crowd on Saturday and positive feedback has made that effort worth it.
Dotter went on to say that Boden plans on continuing to stay open Saturdays and Sundays into the foreseeable future, and if the store gets busy enough they will consider opening during the week.
In addition to Boden, the Open Space is also available to rent for private parties or gatherings.
Boden is open Saturday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Sunday noon to 4 p.m.
