Simply Organized to open new store in Kahala Mall
By Erika Engle
 Simply Organized LLC, which opened its first store in Kapolei in 2008, will expand to Kahala Mall next year.
"We love that (Kahala) location," said Carol Ai May, vice president of Simply Organized LLC and vice president of City Mill Co.
The new Simply Organized will move into the 8,300-square-foot space occupied by Champs Sports, which will move elsewhere in the mall.
The new store will carry more than 3,000 products for organizing the home and office. As does the Kapolei store, the Kahala location will stage free, monthly "how-to" workshops on organizing the home or office and on making best use of closet space.
The Kapolei store, at the Crossroads at Kapolei, measures 12,000 square feet and employs 15 people.
May and her brother Steven, president of Simply Organized and City Mill, dreamed up the retail concept after seeing the proliferation of self-storage warehouses across Hawaii and elsewhere.
The Kahala store will be joining a long-established retail center, and despite its smaller size, May plans to hire 20 people because of the center's higher foot traffic and the area's larger population base. Hiring will begin next year, a few months before the store's opening in the summer or fall.
The flagship store in Kapolei has seen a "fair amount of East Honolulu people" who, when the Kahala store opens, won't have to drive nearly as far for organizational items. They also will be able to go to Macy's, Cinnamon Girl and Aveda without having to get back into the car.
"There's nothing like it in the area," May said. "I think it will be a good complement to the mall."
Simply Organized generally is a female-targeted store, but "when men come into it, they love it. … They find all these things that they can use, too."
May spoke of a dentist who, on his 50th birthday, came to Simply Organized in Kapolei. He bought baskets to create a uniform look for the file storage in his office, she said.
*Story courtesy of the Honolulu Star Advertiser |
