DiSiena Furniture to close doors

DiSiena Furniture’s 70th year in business will be its last.

The landmark business, greatly reduced in workforce and sales volume from its heyday, has suffered from the bane of so many Main Street retailers in the past two decades: online sales and big box chains.

It will start a going out of business sale Sept. 14 and when the inventory is gone, put its warehouse and two showrooms up for sale.

“We’ve just gotten to the point where profitability is a struggle,” manager Martin Gossin said Wednesday. “All aspects of overhead have been increasing except for the price of furniture and the margin on furniture.

“It’s just math.”

The company was formed by Bernard and Angie DiSiena in 1947 as a part-time venture and grew to scores of employees in showrooms on Central Avenue and Round Lake Avenue, plus a warehouse and design center off Round Lake Avenue. After Bernard’s death in 1975, Angie ran the business until her own death in 2010 at age 87. It’s now owned by her children, Bernard DiSiena, Salvadore DiSiena and Carol Zapppone.

Zappone on Wednesday said it the decision is bittersweet. She’s now 63 and her first grandchild is a year old, and retirement will give her and husband Mike Zappone time to relax a bit from something she has been doing more than 40 years.

“My parents started it, they lived next door, I grew up in the store, played house in the store,” she said. Customers on the mailing list were notified of the impending closure, and many have been calling with congratulations and commiseration. That has been nice to hear, said Zappone, noting that DiSiena has a number of multigeneration customers.

The business was heavily damaged by the tornado that hit the city in 1998. The family was able to rebuild from that but could not recover from the changes that would soon hit the retail industry, with the mass popularity of online shopping.

“I have to sell ten times more just to make a profit,” Gossin said.

Particularly vexing are the shoppers who are “showrooming,” testing something out in person before they buy it online. They don’t even hide their intentions anymore, he said.

“It’s brutal. They’ll do it right in your face.”

Zappone said she and Salvadore have had been tangled in legal disputes with their brother for years, which also contributed to the decision to close down, but the changing retail marketplace was the greater factor. 

“The internet is here to stay but it’s hurting a lot of businesses,” Mechanicville Mayor Dennis Baker said Wednesday, lamenting the impending departure of a business and a family he has been familiar with for decades.

“It definitely is a landmark for the city.”

Years ago, Baker said, DiSiena was a major presence in the city after it lost its railroad and paper industries. DeCrescente, a distributing company, is now the biggest employer, and the Price Chopper supermarket also has a lot more workers than DiSiena.

DiSiena had about 50 employees at the time of the tornado but has only about 20 now.

“It’s sad to see them go,” said Tom Richardson, the city’s representative on the county Board of Supervisors. “They’ve been a huge part of the city and the whole community.”

He said he hoped the void could be filled.

“Hopefully there’s some leads, or some prospects … so we can welcome some new businesses to town,” he said. “I’m always contacting people to look at different buildings.”

In a sad bit of irony, DiSiena’s going out of business sale will directly follow the 70th anniversary sale under way now. But 70 years was a milestone the family wanted to reach.

“It’s a changed industry, that’s for sure. But I’ll miss it,” Zappone said.

Categories: Business, News, Schenectady County