Slager Appliances opening new store in Cedar Rapids

Slager Appliances is opening a new store at the Westdale Town Center in southwest Cedar Rapids. Construction is already well underway for the store, at 2380 Edgewood Road SW, and owner Tim Slager said the new location – the company’s first store outside Johnson County – will be open by the end of August. Mr. Slager said he’s considered opening a store in Cedar Rapids for several years, and decided to move forward when the property at Westdale became available. “That side of Cedar Rapids is rather up and coming, by my thoughts,” he said. “When I looked a few years ago, it was really tough to find anything retail, at least for my category. It was always something on the radar, but now everything is working out. And it’s probably better now, because with technology today, it’s so much easier to have remote locations.” Mr. Slager said the company had a second location at Sycamore Mall in the early 1970s, when Slager branched into the consumer electronics segment, but since that location closed, Slager has maintained a single store at 425 Highway 1 West. The expansion to Cedar Rapids makes business sense, Mr. Slager said. “We’ve already got delivery trucks and service vehicles in Cedar Rapids every day,” he said. “So now, you won’t have to drive to Iowa City to look at something.” Mr. Slager said at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, as online sales volume exploded, he wondered if a physical showroom would still be needed in the long term. However, he said, some shopping experiences are still largely tactile. “When it comes to major appliances, I don't think we're quite like the Amazons of the world,” he said. “You can buy shirts and shoes and that kind of stuff online, but with major appliances, people still want to touch and feel and slam the doors.” Mr. Slager said his family has numerous connections to Cedar Rapids. “The Slager side is basically Williamsburg and Iowa City, but my mom's side of the family, the Stamy side, is all Cedar Rapids,” he said, noting that his grandfather owned an insurance agency in Cedar Rapids and he grew up playing around the former Perpetual Savings and Loan building downtown. In addition, the Stamy Industrial Park in Hiawatha is traced to Mr. Slager’s mother’s family heritage, he said. At approximately 10,000 square feet, the Slager Appliances store in Cedar Rapids will be somewhat smaller than the Iowa City store, but will still carry a full line of appliances as well as an extensive showroom. Staff will include a manager and two full-time salespeople, as well as service technicians that will serve both the Cedar Rapids and Iowa City stores as needed. The new store comes as Slager prepares to celebrate its 75th anniversary, making it one of Iowa City’s oldest continuously operating businesses, Mr. Slager said. “A lot of long-term business might have gone through one, two, maybe three owners, but we're still a generational family,” he said. “My son's the fourth generation, I'm the third. Even our main store phone number, 337-3800 – all our old stationery from the 1950s, when there was only a four digit phone number, 3800 was our number. “A lot has changed in our business, especially in the last two decades,” he added. “My dad comes down and he just shakes his head, like ‘the stuff you deal with is totally different from the stuff I had to deal with.’ It’s a different game, for sure.”