A spring to grow on

Peter MezittThink you’ve got a busy spring ahead of you? Peter Mezitt and the team at Weston Nurseries might give you a run for your money. This Hopkinton, Mass.-based retailer is opening a second location this year in Chelmsford, Mass.

Mezitt has had several eventful years in a row, in fact. He’s a fourth-generation nurseryman—and has been part of the team working to transition the business to its next generation. This process hasn’t been particularly easy. The company had to file for bankruptcy to re-organize the business and buy out Mezitt’s uncle. It emerged from bankruptcy around four years ago, and continues to evolve its business model. “We paid our vendors 100 cents on the dollar,” Mezitt said. “It feels good that our vendors stuck with us through all this. After coming out of bankruptcy in 2007, we started to change from ‘grow-sell’ to ‘buy-sell’ business format. So there have been big changes in the last five years. We’ve sold land and changed our mentality to be more customer-centric. We still grow about 20 percent of what we sell. And although we have good brand recognition throughout the region, people don’t want to drive too far to shop at a garden center. We feel our second location will be a success—since our name is recognized in a wide area.”


GARDEN CENTER: How long have you been planning the new location?
PETER MEZITT: For the last three years I’ve been keeping my eyes open. My wife and I actually saw a “For Sale” ad in a trade magazine for this nice-looking garden center in Chelmsford. We learned it had been run for a few years and was not profitable due to challenges with its location not being on a main road, coupled with a lack of name recognition.

We are leasing it now, with good terms. Facility-wise, it has all the bells and whistles you could want—including central vacuuming! The landlord has been very generous. They’ve done some alterations on our behalf, like reconfiguring the parking lot so that you park in the front now, rather than off to the side.

GC: How will this outlet differ from the original location?
PM: The demographics in Chelmsford are similar to those in the Hopkinton area. Our customers tend to be higher-service-oriented middle- to upper-class who often want us to install larger size plants and landscapes. They’re the customers who are willing to pay a little more to get quality service and see an instant impact on their properties.

The new location has the same demographic and plenty of single-family homes. When I was doing my search, I defined criteria for a location of a second site. And this area definitely met it.

We expect to see a higher percentage of annuals, perennials and houseplants being sold out of the Chelmsford location because there is a lot more indoor space there.


GC: What’s the biggest challenge in opening the new location?
PM: Getting people there is still our biggest challenge. It’s actually in a residential area—about ¼-mile off the main road. You’ve got to give directions to find the store. We need to be very visible this year —give people every reason to come check us out. We’ll have a healthy marketing budget this year to help with this. We’re also working hard to get approvals for three on-premise signs and one off-premise sign to increase visibility.