Welcome To Eliot’s Big Top

Eliot Tatelman didn’t bring the Greatest Show on Earth to New Haven, but you might have thought otherwise when he introduced people to the location of his new big-box furniture store.

Tatelman (pictured) is the bespectacled, silver ponytail wearing president and CEO of Jordan’s Furniture chain. He is bringing an outlet of the store to the former New Haven Register building at 40 Sargent Dr., that is expected to open this fall.

He joined Mayor Toni Harp and other city officials Wednesday for a ceremonial groundbreaking on what will be the company’s sixth store, and the only Jordan’s Furniture in Connecticut. He said the plan is to make the store a destination that will attract shoppers from all over the state, but from New York too.

Work is already underway transforming the 192,500 square-foot building, which used to house a newsroom and printing press, into not just a large furniture showroom, but a state-of-the art space for entertainment and a full service restaurant.

When Tatelman said ​“entertainment,” he wasn’t talking about adding a few coin-operated arcade machines to distract your kids. He meant IMAX 3‑D theaters, a ​“town” made out of jelly beans, or perhaps a three-level ropes course. At least, those are the ​“entertainment” features he has at Jordan’s Furniture stores in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island.

Tatelman played coy with reporters about his exact plans for the New Haven store, but he promised that it would be an entertainment complex ​“where every kid in the state is going to want to have a birthday party.”

“Connecticut doesn’t know what’s coming,” he said. Tatelman claimed he once paid out $35 million to customers to honor a promotion he ran that refunded their purchases if the Red Sox won the World Series — so he thinks big.

He was a bit more forthcoming on his plans for a showroom. The main floor of the building, which has already been stripped free of any of its former features, will be home to the massive furniture showroom. One of the defining features of the showroom will be a 65-foot chair display, featuring 500 chairs. He gave Harp a chair like the ones he will use in the display for her office. ​“Only good honest people get to sit on it,” he said with a laugh.

Tatelman said good, honest people are the kind of employees he’s looking to hire. Tatelman’s grandfather started the company with 10 employees. The family sold the stores to Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway in 1999; today it employs about 1,000 people. He said the New Haven store will need about 200 new employees. (The construction of the store is providing about 500 jobs for tradesmen.)

Unlike at the other Jordan stores, the company will build its work force with all new employees, instead of having employees from other stores transfer. Tatelman also pointed out that the majority of the jobs would not require a college degree. ​“It’s not that we don’t want educated people, it’s just that a lot of what we need doesn’t require it,” he said.

The average employee has been with the company for 10 years, Tatelman said. He said many worked their way up to management from a job on a delivery truck, or cleaning the warehouse.

Mayor Toni Harp said that she was grateful to have Jordan’s Furniture as ​“another responsible corporate neighbor doing business on Long Wharf.”

It all sounded like good news to Hill Alder Dolores Colon, who was on hand Wednesday to offer her welcome to the city. Colon, through her work as co-chairwoman of the Black and Hispanic Caucus, has been advocating for companies to hire more people from New Haven. She praised Tatelman for his outreach to the community and his consistent efforts to meet with residents as he rolled out his plans.