NEW HARTFORD — Speedy Awards & Engraving, Inc. has a new home and plans to add some new products as the company’s owners work to continue the growth they generated in 2011. Speedy co-owners Anthony (Tony) and Lyn Taurisano, who are brother and sister, found out in September they would need to find a new […]
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NEW HARTFORD — Speedy Awards & Engraving, Inc. has a new home and plans to add some new products as the company’s owners work to continue the growth they generated in 2011.
Speedy co-owners Anthony (Tony) and Lyn Taurisano, who are brother and sister, found out in September they would need to find a new location. Pulam LLC, comprised of Georgio’s Village Café co-owner Judy Gorea and business partner Gayle Pulizzi, purchased the building and announced plans to relocate Georgio’s from 60 Genesee St. to Speedy’s old location at 64 Genesee St. Gorea says in the new location, she will be able to connect her restaurant to her other business, Georgio’s Village Cocktail next door. Currently, the businesses are housed in two separate buildings where connecting them is not an option, she says.
The Taurisanos worked with Pavia Real Estate Services to search for a new location, but it only took one trip for them to find the perfect spot in the Crossroads Plaza at 8411 Seneca Turnpike in New Hartford.
“It was one of the first ones we saw, and we liked it right away,” Lyn Taurisano says of the new space.
Her brother Tony says the site had a lot of appeal, from the ample parking to the ability to have the space revamped to suit their needs.
The Taurisanos signed a 10-year lease with renewal options with plaza owner David Mazloom and spent the week between Christmas and New Year’s moving into the new location. Speedy Awards & Engraving opened for business in the new space on Jan. 3.
“It’s laid out the way we wanted it,” Tony Taurisano says of the new space. Because they could design the store for maximum efficiency, at 2,100 square feet, the new space offers more usability than Speedy’s old 2,200-square-foot space. The old space was divided between two floors, which meant a lot of running up and down the stairs, he says. The new space is all on one level.
And even though the space is slightly smaller, the Taurisanos were able to expand the showroom from 480 square feet to 832 square feet.
“We’ve got a nice pick-up area now,” Tony Taurisano adds, speaking of the counter where customers pick up their completed orders.
Lyn Taurisano says she’s excited the new space provides room for Speedy to carry and display more items.
“We’d like to expand the apparel,” she says. Speedy already offers screen printing and embroidery work on apparel, but never really had the space to display samples of that work, she says. Now she’s hoping to add a new display in the showroom so customers can see that work.
She hopes the new items on display will catch the eye of current customers — which include a lot of businesses, school districts, and nonprofits — and that the new location will attract the notice of new customers.
“I think the convenience is going to help a lot,” Tony Taurisano says of the plaza’s location on Seneca Turnpike in a busy retail section just down the street from places like Sangertown Square Mall and the Consumer Square and The Orchard shopping centers.
“I think we’re a lot more visible, too,” Lyn Taurisano adds. Along with a mention on the shopping plaza sign along Seneca Turnpike, Speedy should benefit from traffic to other businesses in the plaza, which includes Morehouse Appliances and Cartridge World, she says.
The Taurisanos declined to provide revenue figures or sales projections, but say that 2011 was a good year for growth in the business, and they hope to carry that growth over into 2012.
To promote the new location, the Taurisanos have done some print advertising and are actively working to stir up interest and followers on social-network sites like Facebook, where they had 80 fans, and Twitter, where they had 54 followers, as of press time.
The Taurisanos’ parents, Michael and Angela Taurisano, founded Speedy Awards & Engraving in their basement in 1975 before moving to Genesee Street in 1983. Both Lyn and Tony work at the business full time and have one full-time employee. Speedy (www.speedyawards.com) serves Oneida and Herkimer counties, as well as all 50 states through its online ordering options.
