Porter Furniture Up For Auction

July 29--The statues of buxom blondes and knights in armor are gone. So are most of the hundreds of thousands of items that once were packed into Porter Furniture'sColumbia Avenue store.

And, so now, too, is a plan that would have converted the five-story warehouse into apartments.

On Friday, the former store goes on the auction block. The 6 p.m. sale is being handled by the John M. Hess Auction Service.

It wasn't supposed to be like this, said John A. Porter, who worked with his father, John L. Porter, and brother, David A. Porter, in the business for decades.

The brothers closed the 626 Columbia Ave. store at the end of 2010 after their father, the founder, passed away.

It was the passing of their mother, Dorothy Porter, last year that is prompting the auction. The building is in her name and they are settling the estate, Porter said.

"We were under agreement for three years," he said.

A developer planned to renovate the nearly 40,000-square-foot building into 25 apartments. Plans were drawn and ready. But state funding needed for the financing went to another project, he said.

"We tried it and it failed," Porter said.

Redevelopment of the building is hampered by a lack of parking.

Porter said he owns the adjacent property and another nearby.

In preparation for the sale, the building was cleared of the used kitchen sinks, dining room tables and chairs, Betamax cassettes and the thousands of golf clubs that the senior Porter had accumulated.

"He had been collecting for more than 40 years," his son said. "We had so much stuff."

Much of it had been purchased at Saturday morning yard sales around the county and brought to Porters for resale.

Four years ago, the brothers sought to clear the inventory before closing the store. Yet a lot of the items went out the windows into large trash bins after they didn't sell, Porter said.

The family acquired the former tobacco warehouse in 1979, expanding from an Old Dorwart Street garage where John L. Porter began the business in 1946.

While the business flourished in its earlier decades, it had not been profitable for several years before it closed.

The building has also become a burden, Porter said.

Taxes alone are $1,000 a month, he said. Then there are insurance and upkeep.

According to county tax records, the assessed value of the property is $250,800.

The main warehouse was built in 1907. A 4,000-square-foot addition was later added to the rear of the structure. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, newspaper records show.

Since the store closure, Porter has used the office in the front of the building for his real estate business. But it's time to downsize.

"I'm 65, and I'm kind of tired," he said.

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