Mainebiz

W hen an unfi nished furniture store closed in Scarborough last fall, it left a large hole in the town's otherwise booming retail market. But it didn't take too long for Jim Van Fleet to see the empty warehouse building as the perfect place to expand his hot tub and spa business. A few hundred feet down the road, Mainely Tubs and its 37 employees had been hustling sales for hot tubs, spas and saunas while maintaining its commitment to customer service, going from $5 million in revenue in 2012 to $7.5 million last year. e problem was, its 8,000-square-foot space at the time was too small to display or even hold all the products Van Fleet wanted to push. "We needed a bigger showroom and bigger warehouse because the volume wasn't enough to display what we wanted in our showroom," he says. At the same time, Van Fleet wanted to stay in the same area, one of the largest retail sectors in the state, with Wal-Mart and the Maine Mall on one side and Cabela's on the other, all running along the gateway of tourism, I-95. So when Van Fleet heard that Stratham, N.H.-based Mill Stores planned to close its roughly 25,000 square- foot site at 415 Payne Road, he had his real estate broker, Craig Young at CBRE | e Boulos Co., jump on the opportunity. e building hadn't even been listed yet, but with the help of Young, Van Fleet was able to close on the property just before anksgiving for $2.2 million. About six months and $800,000 in refurbish- ments later, Mainely Tubs opened at its new location in May, tripling the size of its previous showroom and warehouse. When talking about his company's new investment, Van Fleet beams about the future. "I enjoy the idea of bringing a building with faded glory back to life," he says of the building, which was originally built in 1978 for Auburn-based Riverside Millwork. "It gives us all the physical space we need to continue our growth path." More space for larger products If you haven't visited a hot tub store before, walking into Mainely Tubs' new location might make you feel as if you received a golden ticket to meet the Willy Wonka of hot tubs. While the store has its share of ordinary hot tubs and saunas, there are a few standout products that seem larger than life. At the center of the store, for example, is a giant swim spa that sits on an elevated platform, measuring at about 17 feet long and seven feet wide. "We've had people clamoring for swim spas," Van Fleet says of the spa behemoth. " ese are huge, endless pools. We've never had space for them before. And I never wanted to carry it until I could display it in a responsible way for customers." Just a few feet away, Van Fleet takes me inside what is called a telescoping sunroom, a curved glass enclo- sure that is designed to connect to the side of a house. Van Fleet closes and opens the doors as he describes the product, making his enthusiasm clear. "It is the best engineered product I have seen in the years I've been going to trade shows," he says. "See how they telescope? So all of a sudden, you're open or you're closed." Outside of these larger-than-life products, Van Fleet says Mainely Tubs' largest distinction has been its record for being a top seller for Hot Spring, a brand of hot tubs and spas made by Vista, Calif.-based Watkins Manufacturing Co. He takes me over to a tall glass display that is full of plaques from the company, handed out over the years for various honors. "Watkins Manufacturing is the largest, by vol- ume and dollars, manufacturer in the hot tub indus- try. ey also have the largest dealer network, with over 1,000 dealers," he says, just before pointing to the case. "You could fi nd in this trophy case that on 11 occasions we were named the largest volume Hot Spring store in the world." With products ranging from just under $2,000 to $30,000, Van Fleet says the company's sales of 700 units a year are mainly driven by well-to-do Mainers on the coast, as well as seasonal residents who may have even more money to spend. e company also serves customers in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. "When I'm asked to attribute the single biggest reason for our success, I like to say we have 18,000 salespeople, which is how many cus- tomers we have," he says. 'I'm in the take-care-of-people business' Mainely Tubs has come a long way since Van Fleet bought the business in 1993, when it only had two employees at a 700-square-foot space in Portland's Bayside neighborhood. Under his fi rst full year of ownership in 1994, Van Fleet says Mainely Tubs sold fewer than 50 hot tubs, bringing in less than $200,000 in revenue. Needless to say, those were dark times. But Van Fleet, who previously served as chief fi nancial offi cer for DeLorme Publishing in Yarmouth, had a plan to turn the company around, and it didn't just involve pushing products. Hot tubs no time machine The future is now for Mainely Tubs B y D y l a n M a r t i n Mainely Tubs owner Jim Van Fleet in one of his hot tubs in Scarborough VO L . X X I N O. X I I J U N E 1 5 , 2 0 1 5 18 P H O T O / T I M G R E E N WAY

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