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HIGH POINT — When market opens in April, one of High Point’s most visible Main Street properties will have a new look and a new tenant.
Once the dust settles and the lights are on at 135 S. Main St., two storefront entrances — one for market days and one for year-round — will welcome buyers to a new 16,000-square-foot Phillips Collection showroom. Scheduled to open at the upcoming April market, the new space for the home furnishings supplier is part of a total renovation project for the former Red Lion Hotel located in what many describe as “the heart of High Point Market.”
“We will be open with bells ringing for April,” said Mark Phillips, CEO. “We’ll have two grand, inviting entrances (Commerce to handle the flow of traffic during market and Main Street as an inviting avenue for daily traffic), high ceilings, entertaining spaces, offices, a brand experience center, and even a back-alley entrance (Speakeasy?). And the pièce de resistance is our own newly compliant loading dock — you better have one when your average table is 10 feet long!”
The oversize street-front windows on the Commerce and Main Street sides of the showroom will showcase a selection of Phillips Collections’ new and existing product lines, both during High Point Market as well as off-market times. According to Phillips, the project could breathe 12-month energy into an area of the market district that is usually dark for most of the year and allow the company to reach new buyer audiences while also supporting the surrounding High Point community.
When asked what initially attracted him to the space, Phillips paid homage to a longtime real estate adage.
“Location, location, location!” he said. “We want to be a small piece of the movement that is already underway and continuing to evolve, which is a resurgence of the market district in downtown High Point.
“We love being mentioned in the same breath as the Hall of Fame; what a magnificent presence it will add,” Phillips continued. “To that point, we have hired the same architect as Hall of Fame, Freeman Kennett, so undoubtedly, the caliber and uplift will be related. What an amazing industry we’re in, where we grow up next to our competitors and thrive on the synergy of proximity. We will do everything we can to welcome and further new development.”
The new Phillips Collection showroom is just one phase of the total Red Lion renovation. Additional future renovations of the hotel space are expected to include redesigned guest rooms and common areas, as well as potential additional showrooms, according to Simon Burgess, managing director partner for Mayfair Street Partners, in an interview earlier this year.
And just as the project continues to evolve and usher in a new era for a familiar real estate property in High Point, the new showroom will also support long-term goals for the Phillips Collection and the family’s leadership team.
“This is a generational opportunity,” Phillips said. “Both Jason and Jessica Phillips understand today’s customer, today’s media, today’s presentation. They will take our decades-long lesson on intimate branding and bring it to the world with this flagship.”
