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Frattallone’s Ace Hardware and Garden has been a fixture in Arden Plaza since 1975, we moved into our current location in 1995 in a space that had been vacant almost three years. Throughout the 39 plus years we have been in Arden Hills we have continually upgraded our assortments and our business plan to match the market place. In 1995 we opened our fifth garden center in the space adjacent to our store, in a spot that was barely used. Since 1995 we have grown both our inside sales and our garden center sales at our Arden Hills site. This growth has been fueled by the addition of the garden center, which has clearly made us a destination in our community. Roughly 30% of our business is done in the garden center, between live goods, outdoor décor, and bagged goods we are supplying what our neighbors want. Throughout the last 19 years we have tried to make the shopping experience both complete and more enjoyable for our customers. Making it easier to shop, both inside and in the garden center area have been our goal in our business. Because of this we have striven to make it as easy as possible for us to deliver the “helpful” promise. This has had us find the best solutions for our customers. Each season we sell approximately 23,000 units of bag goods. Mulches, potting soils, top soils, while not high dollar items are in great demand in our community. We have tried to run less truck traffic though our site, bringing in more product on each shipment. Even with that said 23,000 bags easily is between 250 and 400 pallets of product, which primarily sells April to July. We try to stage product to arrive by need, but manipulating trucks from Montana, Ohio, Florida, and elsewhere poses challenges. We have used the south side of our building to “store” this bagged good product. This has kept it mostly out of anyone’s site line, and made it so we can serve our customers in a timely manner. We have also created a system to keep bagged good product adjacent to the parking area with no physical barriers to loading for customers. Spring really is our busiest time, both inside the store and in the garden center, the month of May accounts for 20% of our annual business. Last year we had 17,500 customer in our store just that month. Many of these people bought some of the 70,000 plants that we sold in that month. We attempt to keep our product as fresh as possible, and receive as many realistically sized orders as possible. This product fills the inside of the fenced area and presents a neat, clean, garden center experience for our customers. We have striven throughout the years to enhance the customer experience at Frattallone’s Ace Hardware and Garden. Now with buying our site, remodeling the inside, making the garden center permanent, and moving our offices offsite we believe that we are moving the next step for us and our customers. I think that with all the improvements coming after we purchase this building everyone will be even happier having Frattallone’s Hardware and Garden in Arden Hills. Tom Frattallone