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Woodley’s Garden Center
Raising The Bar
With a new location in a “village”
concept of retail mixed with residential homes, Rick Woodley has changed the stakes of garden center retailing.
by Jennifer Polanz, Managing Editor
jepolanz@meistermedia.com
Born out of a commercial landscape maintenance firm in 1981, Woodley’s Garden Center in Columbia, S.C., is now venturing into somewhat uncharted waters with its second location.
Owner Rick Woodley knows opportunity when he sees it, even if it doesn’t take shape right away. He started out in a rural part of Northeast Columbia first with the maintenance firm and progressed to buying a nursery in 1987. He sold that and bought the current property on Two Notch Road a short time later for a retail operation and watched as developers snatched up land around him.
“We were the only thing out there, with the hot dog stand,” Woodley recalls in his congenial Southern drawl. “But now all the growth has exploded around us.”
Robert Hendrickson of The Garden Center Group says Woodley is one of the clients in the group that was primed to focus just on retail and develop that side of the business.
“He’s 100 percent retailer,” Hendrickson says. “His sales growth has been tremendous. Each year, Rick’s been very aggressive to expand both the facility retail selling spaces and upgrade, and we’ve expanded the marketing to go along with it.”
When Woodley phased out everything but retail in the late 1990s, he knew he had made the right choice. With sales north of $3 million on close to 5 acres, he began looking around for a new opportunity.
“It’s been a really good journey from where we started to where we are now,” Hendrickson says. “And I think a lot of it is that we found an owner who could focus every day on retail.”
Because of the strides made by the garden center, Woodley’s was named one of Today’s Garden Center’s 100 Revolutionary Garden Centers in January 2006.
Taking The Leap
Woodley gives credit to The Garden Center Group for its help in steering him in the right direction and matching him with the necessary consultants. In the case of his newest venture, it was The Hayter Firm of Pinehurst, N.C., which specializes in site and facility design.
“In 2003 at one of the (Garden Center Group) Fall Events … I ran into some guys that were working on an idea of putting a village concept in with the garden center as the anchor store, just like you see with a grocery store like Publix,” Woodley says. “There’s a retail village wrapped around a parking lot.”
That project was New Garden Village, a complex of retail shops on 40 acres that encompasses all aspects of home and garden living. “Think of it like the Olympic rings, instead of five rings they have three,” explains Robert Hayter of The Hayter Firm. “Outdoor living, home renaissance and fine living.”
Those three rings are representative of a match to the demographic target of upscale consumers with disposable income. For example, the tenants include companies like Right Touch Catering & Deli, The Wild Bird House, Creative Pools of Greensboro and Pine Hall Brick, just to name a few.
 The concept has several advantages, including increased traffic because of the amount of stores and a greater amount of parking available to the garden center. Woodley decided the idea was golden, and worked with five others to secure 34 acres in the fast-growing Ballentine area of Columbia. The six-person partnership, now called Village Venture Group, spent two years working to get the property rezoned and financed. The development is now called Ballentine Village Gardens.
A Village With A Twist
Woodley’s village, however, has a different twist than the New Garden Village. He included room for residential development, as well, so 61 “garden homes” will be built adjacent to the retail section. The reason for residential is twofold, Woodley says. First, once the land is ready, it will be sold to the builder, but the landscaping rights are Woodley’s – so essentially the homes become “display gardens” and inspiration for potential customers.
Second, the residential section is a built-in core of customers. The homes will range from 2,200 to 2,500 square feet, designed for upscale homeowners with discriminating tastes. The plan includes a retention pond doubling as a beautiful, lighted landscaping piece, as well as more than a mile of walking trails through the residential and village areas.
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We Plan, You Plant
One aspect of retail that has garnered discussion lately is the “We Plan, You Plant” model of designing smaller projects for DIY-ers. At Woodley’s, the program is in its second year and growing. The garden center takes appointments all day on Friday and some on Saturday, and charges $25 per appointment. If a customer doesn’t show up, they get docked the $25. However, if they do show up for the usually 45-minute session, they receive a $25 gift card to use in the store at any time.
“Very few take the plan and walk out,” notes owner Rick Woodley. “We try to put on the plan what we have in stock.”
The program accounts for about 2 to 3 percent of the whole business, but shows customers that Woodley’s is the go-to place for help and advice. The plans not only incorporate plant material, but benches, fountains and other outdoor living accents, as well.
“I’m interested in seeing them succeed,” Woodley says. “We can make it easy |
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“Woodley’s had the opportunity to integrate a tract of land and have a community with a smaller amount of commercial property,” explains Hayter, who says only 8 acres are commercial. “It’s more garden based. The Hayter Firm only does conservation land use plans, so a minimum of 30 percent of the land remains intact.”
Woodley expects the new store to open in the fall with 4,000 square feet of interior retail space, 4,000 square feet of greenhouse for tropicals, an attached greenhouse for annuals and another 4,000 square feet for outdoor living. The plexiglass, pitched-roof greenhouses will be constructed by Jaderloon, which is based nearby.
He foresees a gazebo outside with two registers and four inside for a total of six, as well as 250 parking spaces for the village. The Village Venture Group, of which Woodley is a one-sixth investor, is receiving serious phone calls from interested parties for the rest of the retail spots. One important point to note is Woodley is the sole owner of the garden center, but equal partner in the rest of the venture.
Success In Both Houses
It will be a new challenge for Woodley’s to expand into a second location, but he has a talented staff that can help make the transition. Robin Klein is the general manager of the original store, and has been working at Woodley’s for seven years, starting out in the accounting office.
“I worked my way up to general manager,” says Klein, who shopped at the store before getting the job there. “There’s just something about the ambiance and atmosphere out here – even before I started working here I liked it.”
She’s seen many changes since she started, including expansion of all the departments and the parking lot.
“That’s the thing about a lot of the garden centers in The Garden Center Group,” says Hendrickson. “Unless there’s an opportunity to build something from scratch, it’s sort of a journey of constant improvement. People shouldn’t be discouraged that they can’t be all they hope to be in one year.”
For example, Hendrickson says, they helped Woodley’s smooth out the shrub yard, shift the ratio of product, expand the square footage for perennials, add more registers and increase the size of all other plant departments.
The next steps include expanding the marketing efforts and improving operational efficiency, which is a constant process.
“It excites customers and owners,” Hendrickson says of the improvements. “They see something happening every year, and see the company progressing.”
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