NORMAN — Mathis Brothers Oklahoma City LLC purchased a $1.1 million piece of land in the University North Park area last week, according to county real estate documents available online.
A company official said the well-known furniture store is looking at the possibility of building a “sleep studio” in the UNP area, which will sell mattresses, not furniture.
Calvin Worth, vice president and general manager of Mathis Brothers, said last month the company is “waiting to see what the economy does before we move forward” on the Norman store. He could not be reached for comment on the recent purchase of land in Norman.
“This would be a sleep studio, not a satellite Mathis Brothers store,” Worth said in February of the development in the University North Park area. “We recently put a sleep studio at Portland (Avenue) and Reno (Avenue) in (Oklahoma City), and it’s been doing quite well, so we’ll see.”
With roots dating back more than a half-century, Mathis Brothers owns several furniture and mattress stores in Oklahoma City and Tulsa and expanded into the California market in 1999 with a location in Indio, a town near Palm Springs.
In 2007, the company opened a massive, 400,000-square-foot store in Ontario, Calif., a suburb of Los Angeles. The Mathis Brothers website claims the location in Ontario is the largest furniture store in California.
Mathis Brothers is owned by Bill and Larry Mathis, the sons of Don Mathis. The brothers bought the family-owned furniture store from their father in 1988 and have since expanded to nine retail locations.
Andrew Knittle 366-3540 aknittle@normantranscript.com
