Forman Mills, which sells discounted designer fashions and home goods, is opening its Maple Heights store at 9 a.m. Friday, March 11, at Southgate USA Shopping Center at 5316 Northfield Road.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Forman Mills Clothing Factory Warehouse is opening its second Ohio store, in the Southgate USA Shopping Center at 5316 Northfield Road in Maple Heights at 9 a.m. Friday, March 11.
Forman Mills, based in Pennsauken Township, New Jersey, sells discounted designer fashions and home goods, including "brand names so big they can not be advertised."
Founded in 1981, Forman Mills now has 36 bright-yellow stores in nine states, including a location at 11905 Superior Ave. on Cleveland's East Side.
The 55,000-square-foot Maple Heights store will sell men's, women's and children's clothing and shoes for everyday, school uniforms, and special occasions, as well as authorized clothing from major league, collegiate, and professional sports teams, including the Cleveland Browns, Cavaliers, and Indians.
Besides the 9:30 a.m. ribbon cutting Friday, the store will continue the festivities Saturday with a marching band, food trucks, line dancing, music, cotton candy, magicians, and a bubble blower.
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Forman Mills' founder and CEO Rick Forman Forman Mills' founder and Chief Executive Richard Forman was featured last year in the CBS hit TV show Undercover Boss, in an episode (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVroDodMuLA) that called the company a "discount superstore that sells brand-name clothing at dirt-cheap prices," according to CBS.
"Hard-working families deserve quality, fashionable apparel and home goods at affordable prices," Forman said in a written statement. "Our prices are ridiculously low to help consumers stretch their hard-earned dollars that much further. Maple Heights and Ohio residents shouldn't have to break the bank to provide for their families."
The company said the Maple Heights store will create more than 200 full- and part-time jobs and invest an estimated $2 million in Cleveland area payrolls.
"We're proud to build stores in communities where people actually live and work and that other retailers seem to have almost all but forgotten," Forman said. "The Maple Heights area has been particularly hard hit in the last few months, with two national retailers leaving," referring to the Walmart and Target stores that have closed in recent years.
"We want to help create jobs and revitalize communities. We think people should be able to shop right in their own neighborhoods and not have to catch two or three buses to provide for their families. That's why we're here."
Forman started his retail career at age 17, with an $80 loan from his father, according to the company. He grew the business with deals like three printed T-shirts for $5, a promotion for which Forman Mills is still known.
He was 21 when he opened the first Forman Mills clothing store, then called Forman Knitting Mills, in 1981 in an alleyway on Frankford Avenue in Philadelphia. The store was part outdoor flea market, part indoor showroom, the company said. Four years later he opened the first Forman Mills Factory Clothing Warehouse superstore in an old warehouse in South Philadelphia.
The company's "Forman Mills!" shout, heard on television and in radio spots around the country, has become what the company calls "the battle cry of the exceptional-value category shopper."
Forman Mills is considering two more stores in the Cleveland area, as well as locations in Akron, Dayton, Columbus, and Cincinnati.