nicholas@deadanddyingretail.com
History
DIY Home Warehouse Incorporated was the company that operated a chain of Home improvement stores in Northeastern Ohio from 1984-2001. The Company was founded in October 1984 by Clifford Reynolds. Slowly the company expanded (mostly into former Clarkins store locations), by the mid 1990's DIY Home Warehouse was building their new stores from the ground up. In the 1990s DIY Home Improvement and Builders Square were the two main home improvement chains in Northeastern Ohio.
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| A paint stirrer from competitor Builders Square. |
At its peak DIY operated 16 stores (all of which were in Northeastern Ohio) and the company employed 1,800 employees. In late the late 1990s National Home Improvement retailers Home Depot and Lowe's moved into the area. This movement started to drain customers from DIY Home Improvement. The new Lowe's and Home Depot stores were larger, had a larger selection, and had lower prices than those at DIY Home Warehouse stores. From then on no more new DIY Home Warehouse locations would open, but instead the number of stores started to slowly decrease. At the time the company stated they were closing all remaining stores (June 19th, 2001), they had only six stores still open. The last of the stores closed in late August 2001.
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| A product from DIY Home Warehouse. |
Store Locations
This is the list of the last six stores in operation. I will be back with more locations soon.
- Akron- 3200 South Arlington Street
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| Google Streetview |
- Ashtabula- 3201 North Ridge Street East
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| How store appeared in January 2013 |
- Cleveland- 12800 Brookpark Road
- Eastlake- 34200 Vine Street (Demolished for Walmart)
- Elyria- 1016 East Broad Street
- Warren- 3416 Elm Road Northeast *Still has signage intact as of 2013!*
I worked at DIY in medina for over a year until Home Depot was built across the street and ran us out of business. Home Depot recruited a bunch of people I worked with including myself to come work there. Thankfully I was smart and went to lowe's instead where I spent 4 yrs!
ReplyDeleteThere was a DIY in Brook Park / Berea at the corner of Ohio 237 and Sheldon Road. The building is now used by a company that fixes furnaces called Fosbel.
ReplyDeleteThe Elyria Flea Market would close shortly after the roof collapsed. Also, Elyria's DIY received the short-lived green-and-yellow makeover, also housing the 'dollar-store' substore of FrugalBee$. When the Flea Market opened, you could see the interior had not been touched, with the DIY portions still in green and FrugalBee$ in the wood-tone brown.
ReplyDeleteAfter the Flea Market left, the building was home to the Lorain County Port Authority. I think it's up for lease/sale again right now. Bookseller Video (in the space to the right of DIY's entrance), which had been there for as long as I've lived in the area (1996), finally wound up closing this past year.
There's some new activity next to the McDonald's in front of the old DIY. I don't know what it is yet (I haven't had an opportunity to drive around and check it out), but it's a decent-sized building.
I worked at DIY in the early-90's, and can say that it was one of the worst managed companies to exist. The lumber was of poor quality, (usually warped), selection was poor and prices were high. Senior management refused to acknowledge that Home Depot and Lowe's would drive them out, until it was too late. The systems were severly outdated and slow. The changes that were made were insufficient to handle transaction processing, again due to poor systems planning on the part of the IT department. Cronyism abounded between management and staff, while employees were constantly threatened and belittled with disciplinary action.
ReplyDeleteD.I.Y. Home Warehouse, Inc. (DIY) operates nine retail warehouse-format home improvement centers that sell products primarily to do-it-yourself home repair. survival warehouse review
ReplyDeleteI wish they had DIY home improvement stores like these out west!
ReplyDeleteAwesome info! I was honestly just thinking about something similar to this other day so, it was almost weird when I ran across this.. Anyway, thanks for getting this cool info out there and I am sure I am not only one who appreciates you taking time to post this for masses. i really like this site...thanks.
ReplyDeletenice..
ReplyDeleteThere was a DIY in Brook Park / Berea at the corner of Ohio 237 and Sheldon Road. The building is now used by a company that fixes furnaces called Fosbel.
ReplyDeleteRichard