La-Z-Boy breaks ground on new headquarters in Monroe

6/20/2013
BLADE STAFF
La-Z-Boy plans to replace this office with a new $57 million headquarters in Monroe.
La-Z-Boy plans to replace this office with a new $57 million headquarters in Monroe.

MONROE — With civic leaders and dozens of its employees on hand, executives of La-Z-Boy Inc. today broke ground on a new $57 million world headquarters here in Monroe that the company plans to occupy by the spring of 2015.

The 200,000 square foot building will sit adjacent to an oak savannah on 40 acres of a 120-acre site on an undeveloped land purchased from the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, a Catholic religious order based in Monroe. The sisters’ campus is less than a mile east of Monroe-based La-Z-Boy’s existing headquarters on N. Telegraph Road.

Kurt Darrow, La-Z-Boy chairman, president, and chief executive officer, said after the ceremony that he expects construction of the new three-story headquarters, La-Z-Boy’s first new home offices in 85 years, to go quickly.

Mr. Darrow said that the building will be constructed according to environmentally-friendly standards and it will be situated on a site that is “the gem of the community.” When finished the headquarters is expected to create an additional 50 jobs and retain another 450.

The executive said no decision has been made on what will become of the existing headquarters building.