An Oak Park-based tile company will begin its move into a old warehouse on Lake Street this month.
Heritage Tile, at 146 N. Oak Park Ave., will relocate its design, sales and administrative staff to 222 Lake St. The property is a former warehouse that will be converted to office space, said Liz Holt, Heritage Tile’s education and outreach manager.
Currently, the company occupies two storefronts: 144 and 146 N. Oak Park Ave. The company’s flagship brand is Subway Ceramics, and its tile is exported around the world, said Keith Bieneman, Heritage Tile’s owner and general manager.
As Heritage Tile has grown steadily, its needs have outgrown the Oak Park Avenue location.
“What’s happening is we are giving up one of the storefronts,” Holt said.
More Top Picks Garage Heater
The space at 144 N. Oak Park Ave. will remain the showroom and public space for the next few years, Holt said, as the company slowly transitions all operations to the Lake Street space, which is 8,500 square feet.
Bieneman said that the former warehouse — built in the early 1950s — accommodates the company’s need for office, storeroom and eventual showroom spaces.
“We could see how that could be transformed into a retail showroom in the future,” he said, adding that he expects it’ll be two to three years before the showroom moves to the Lake Street space. “We’re looking forward to bringing it back to that midcentury aesthetic.”
Started as a small retail shop in Madison, Wis., in the mid-1990s, the company has been in Oak Park about five years, Bieneman said. With the value placed in historic homes and architectural details in Oak Park, Holt said it’s been a good fit.
“We’ve just continued to grow,” Holt said. “People here speak our language. They get it.”
Heritage Tile’s warehouse is in Verona, Wis., and its tile manufacturing occurs in southern California; nothing will change with regard to those facilities, Holt said.
Because the Lake Street space currently isn’t open to the public, Holt said the company will take its time with the move.
“The move will start at the end of May, but that might take a month,” she said.
Caitlin Mullen is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.