Playing to strengths

Stein Gardens & Gifts and Hawks Nursery Co. announced last week that Stein will open its 16th store in Hawk’s retail space in Wauwatosa, Wisc.

Stein did not buy Hawks’ property, and Hawks will continue to offer its landscape design, construction and maintenance services, said Mark Birmingham, president and CEO of Stein Gardens & Gifts.

“Hawks made the decision to get out of the retail business, and we are stepping in and we are taking over their location in a typical landlord/tenant fashion,” Birmingham said. “It’s a good opportunity for two companies to come together and play to their respective strengths.  Ours is retail, Hawks is landscape design, and it’s going to be a good growth opportunity for both companies.”

Hawks’ retail store closed on Feb. 17. The plan is to open the Stein location in April, and Birmingham said cosmetic changes aren’t necessary.

“We’re very fortunate – the store is a beautiful facility,” he said. “We’re really looking at it more on a strategic side, so evaluating the approach to customer checkout, for example, to make sure we can process customers in a timely fashion on busy spring weekends. Right now, for our store and the volume we expect to do out of that store, there aren’t enough checkouts.”

And Birmingham said Stein intends to retain much of the Hawks staff, a decision that will help maintain the 138-year-old business’ customer base.

“They’ve built up that relationship with the customer. The customer comes in, and they’re used to seeing certain faces and personalities,” Birmingham said. “We want to make sure we continue to have those folks there so we’re not missing a beat when it comes to service and the relationship with the customer.”

Birmingham said that he and the president of Hawks, Joe Kresl, first discussed the possibility of a partnership in September. Kresl said in a note about the decision on the Hawks website that the companies will provide each other’s products.

“Our landscape customers will enjoy even greater benefits, as Hawks will now purchase its annuals, perennials and the majority of our nursery stock from Stein Gardens & Gifts,” Kresl said.
Stein will offer access to Hawks Landscape Services at each of its southeastern Wisconsin locations beginning in spring.

“We spent some time getting to know each another, and the more we talked, we realized that the core values of our organizations were really aligned,” Birmingham said. “Hawks is a great name in the Milwaukee market with a strong and established clientele. We’ll be able to come in and hit the ground running.”