Michaels Opens First Manhattan Store

    IRVING, TX, October 19, 2009 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Michaels, North America's largest arts and crafts specialty retailer, sets a new standard in the category with its first Manhattan store featuring a unique new urban store design that focuses on providing creative inspiration with more than 30,000 products.

The Manhattan store is located in the new Columbus Square development at 808 Columbus Avenue at 97th Street. A weeklong grand opening celebration begins October 25, 2009 and includes free craft workshops, product demos, giveaways and a special appearance by Martha Stewart.

"Michaels' customers have been asking us for a Manhattan location for years, and we think they'll love having the breadth and depth of thousands of creative products under one roof," said Michaels CEO John Menzer. "The Manhattan store brings something completely new to New Yorkers with everything they need for jewelry making, scrapbooking, fine art, custom framing, children's art, seasonal decor and much more."

Michaels' new Manhattan store is 14,700 square feet and features an open, modern design with wide aisles, warm colors, 'inspiration kiosks' for project ideas and work spaces for customers to lay out their designs before purchasing.

The store is tailored to the Manhattan urban shopper and is the first Michaels to offer a delivery service. Key departments, like fine arts, custom framing, jewelry, scrapbooking and kids, are organized in a convenient, easy-to-navigate, store-within-a-store layout.

- The fine art supply area takes center stage and includes an expanded canvas selection with more shapes and larger sizes, more than 230 brushes and a broad selection of acrylic, oil and watercolor paints. Brushes and other products are arranged by skill level from student to professional to help any artist buy with confidence.

- Custom framing comes out from behind the counter and becomes more interactive to create a customer centric area that encourages a hands-on design experience with a dedicated custom framing design staff. Frames are color coded by price range to easily select the right design for each budget. Customers work hand in hand with their Michaels personal framer to lay out their artwork combining mats and mouldings on an open style design workstation for a truly "custom" experience.

- The scrapbooking department is organized by themes like birthday, holiday, sports and vacation, and features a new variety of loose paper pads, thousands of stickers and embellishments, plus a vast assortment of punches, tools, organizers, adhesives, albums and other necessities.

- The jewelry department has more than 5,600 different styles of open stock, pre-strung, and packaged beads for beginners to expert beaders. Michaels' jewelry department staff helps guide customers, who can use the section's design trays as they choose beads, pendants, charms, chains, cords and findings to make unique combinations.

- The new kids' department provides parents a total solution to inspire their children's imagination and creativity. The department features an expanded assortment of kids' art supplies for school projects, the largest selection of Crayola products in any store, kids activity kits, and foam and value-priced products under $5. The KnackSM, Michaels' resource for moms and teachers that helps enrich kids' lives through creativity, features free project ideas by age group with step-by-step instructions and a shopping list for the products needed to complete the project.

The Michaels Manhattan store grand opening week continues through Saturday, October 31, with special savings on select products, and free events that include a book signing with Martha Stewart, demos and workshops with Michaels' creative expert Jo Pearson, an American Girl Make-It Take-It workshop, a Wilton Cake Decorating demo and a Halloween Event with a free trick-or-treat pail, balloon, candy and a Make-It Take-It Halloween frame (while supplies last). For more information on these and other Michaels Manhattan grand opening events, go to www.michaels.com/manhattan.

About Michaels
Irving, Texas-based Michaels Stores, Inc. is North America's largest specialty retailer of arts, crafts, framing, floral, wall decor, and seasonal merchandise for the hobbyist and do-it-yourself home decorator. The company currently owns and operates over 1000 Michaels stores in 49 states and Canada and over 150 Aaron Brothers stores. For more information visit www.michaels.com

Media Contact:
Kristen Kauffman
214-379-7000
[email protected]

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