Chair factory continues Pennsylvania town's legacy

UNION CITY, Pa. - The same brick factory that helped this town sprout into a furniture manufacturing hub more than a hundred years ago is being prepped by a company that sells sleek seats. <br> <br> Outside, the peeling green paint on the factory&#39;s lone silo still reads &#34;Union City Chair Factory,&#34; a chair company that started in 1881 and laid off the last of its workers in 2000. <br> <br> Inside, Gus Scordas has been busy giving the facility a facelift, stripping walls of World War II-era wires and installing fine Italian woodworking machines to make stylish chairs for his company Noram Seating. <br> <br> With the factory, located about 20 miles southeast of Erie, Scordas hopes to tap the U.S. hospitality market with his designer wooden chairs. He also wants to reopen a furniture showroom at the factory, which once drew customers who drove hours from Pittsburgh and Cleveland. <br> <br> &#34;Let&#39;s say the tradition continues for the time being,&#34; he said. <br> <br> Borough officials have greeted the fledging company with open arms, particularly at a time when many factories in northwestern Pennsylvania are laying off employees. The 250,000-square-foot building is a main fixture for the town with about 3,500 residents. <br> <br> &#34;People can use the work. Not probably, they do,&#34; said Mayor Paul Capela, 62. <br> <br> Union City grew up around a trio of chair manufacturers, including Union City Chair Co., Standard Chair Co. and Shreve Chair Company. Standard was purchased by the Cherry Hill division of Ethan Allen Furniture in the 1950s, which is still operating, and Shreve is now the Molded Fiberglass Company. <br> <br> &#34;It was known as the chair capital of the U.S.,&#34; said Scordas. <br> <br> Even today, Scordas said tourists will still stop in Union City asking if they can buy furniture. <br> <br> Scordas, a 49-year-old Greek immigrant, started in Canada with Noram Interiors in 1992 to design and produce European style interiors for the hospitality industry, including cabinets, bars and tables. The Toronto-based company caters mainly to restaurants but has worked with hotels, motels, malls and hospitals. <br> <br> Then his chair manufacturing facility burned down, forcing Scordas to search as far as Romania for a replacement factory. <br> <br> Scordas dodged the trans-Atlantic commute when he learned the Union City Chair factory was available. UC-Chair Co., the successor to Union City Chair Co., had shut down operations in October 2000, auctioned off equipment and laid off its remaining workers. <br> <br> Shortly after, the deal for the factory went through and crews spent the first six months refurbishing the factory. Besides rewiring the buildings, transformers had to be installed on every imported Italian machine because they were wired to conform with European standards. <br> <br> All told, the company has invested $2.7 million. <br> <br> Scordas said Noram Seating needed to invest in quality machinery to compete with cheaper labor abroad. The factory&#39;s assembly line, equipped with cutting, sanding, assembling and finishing machines, is capable of producing as many as 700 chairs a day for big orders, said manager Stan Maciejowski. <br> <br> Currently, the chairs are being sold to Canadian customers, largely due to the recoil of American businesses in the aftermath of Sept. 11. Scordas said he plans for Noram Seating to become independent of its Canadian sister company by eventually opening a marketing office and upholstery division in the Union City area. <br> <br> Scordas firmly believes there&#39;s a market for his specialty chairs in America, which range from $75 to $300. He says there are already signs of improvement. <br> <br> The company recently received a large order from California and there was good response to a small advertising campaign in the northeastern states. Noram Seating has also been invited by Pennsylvania colleges to bid on a dozen campus improvement projects. <br> <br> &#34;That&#39;s a very pleasant sign,&#34; Scordas said. &#34;We&#39;re really encouraged by the colleges in the state.&#34; <br> <br> Last year, chair sales in Canada reached $6.5 million and Scordas believes that&#39;s just a slice of the Pennsylvania market. <br> <br> &#34;What we&#39;ve done is fulfill the void of producing unique chairs ... and that is basically the need of Noram Seating in America for years to come,&#34; he said. <br> <br> Right now there are just 26 workers at the factory, but Scordas hopes to hire dozens more as orders grow. <br> <br> Capela said there won&#39;t be a shortage of applicants, citing recent layoffs at the local GE Transportation Systems plant in Erie. <br> <br> Noram Seating employee Arthur Peterson considers himself lucky. After putting in 10 years at Union City Chair Co., he was picked up by the new company with a pay raise. <br> <br> &#34;Everyone&#39;s talking,&#34; said Peterson, 58, of nearby Canadohta Lake. &#34;They&#39;re glad because there&#39;s been so many closings and here&#39;s a small company to get in with and grow with it.&#34;