Asheville, N.C.-based Houser Shoes Inc. said Monday it will bring one of its GB Shoe Warehouses to the west side.

Houser Shoes has signed a lease on a 15,000-square-foot building at 190 E. Blackstock Road, beside the new Cowboy Brazilian Steakhouse. The building was formerly occupied by La-Z-Boy, which vacated the space in August 2010.

Gary Houser, founder and CEO of the company, said the store will open in July, just in time for back-to-school shopping. Construction crews were busy Monday working on renovating the building.

“We’ve been looking for a location in Spartanburg for the past eight or nine years, but we just haven’t been able to find a building that was the right fit,” Houser said. “This location became available, and we jumped at it. We felt it is a great opportunity for us and for the people of Spartanburg to find us easily.”

Houser, a veteran of the retail shoe business, founded his own company in 1976. The company has grown into a 10-store chain that he co-operates with his daughter, Beth Radcliffe.

The family-owned company has stores in Anderson, Greenville, Greenwood, Taylors and Columbia in South Carolina, as well as outlets in Augusta, Ga., Lexington, Ky., Hendersonville, N.C., and Kingsport and Knoxville, Tenn.

Houser said the Spartanburg store is an ideal location for the company’s coverage of the Upstate and Western North Carolina.“The people of Spartanburg deserve a really good shoe store, and that’s what we’d like to give them,” Houser said. “We’re very excited to be here.”

The company carries a range of reasonably priced men’s, women’s and children’s shoes in the dress, casual, boot, athletic, work, sandal and slipper varieties.

It is tapped into a number of large brands, including Adidas, Clarks, Nine West, Sperry Top-Sider, Merrell, Timberland, New Balance, Rockport, Ugg and more. Houser also offers a range of clothing choices from companies such as Carhartt and Columbia.

Story By: Story Link
Trevor Anderson
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