Sash & Door locks up after 85 years here

The decision was based on revenue and demand in the Tucson market, said Ted Galbraith, executive vice president of Foxworth-Galbraith Lumber Co., which owns Arizona Sash & Door.

"The home-building business is difficult there," he said Wednesday in a telephone interview from Dallas.

Foxworth-Galbraith Lumber Co. has been selling and closing businesses throughout the country, said John Gifford, assistant manager at Arizona Sash & Door.

No other closures are on the books right now, Galbraith said. The company owns businesses in Texas, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona.

"We think we're at a point where we can survive. Certainly the job market and home-building markets are the two primary drivers, as well as banks' ability to make loans to home builders," Galbraith said.

The 27 Tucson employees will be offered a severance package and some job placement and training, he said.

The parent company closed its Tucson lumberyard last month and is not taking new orders in Tucson, he said. Some of the orders it already has will be filled from Foxworth-Galbraith's Phoenix location.

The business was for sale but no interested buyers came forward, Galbraith said. The property, 401 E. Irvington Road, is still on the market.

When a Nogales location closed last March, officials cited the declining housing market.

"The economy has hit them hard," said Gifford, a 21-year employee at Arizona Sash & Door.

Sales Manager Sergio Lujan has worked there for 28 years and hopes to find another job.

"It hurts," Lujan said, noting his concern about some of the younger employees finding another place to work.

It's a shame such a longtime Tucson company is closing, said Carlson Eby, owner of Eby Custom Remodeling and Building.

"That's a pretty rough statement to the times that we're living in right now," said Eby, who has been working in remodeling and new construction for 30 years.

"It's a scary situation when businesses that have been around as long as they have, and have built themselves up like they have, go out of business," Eby said. He has used Arizona Sash & Door several times for his projects.

Gifford compared the loss to that last spring of the Tucson Citizen, another of the city's older businesses. The custom-door company moved from its downtown location to the south side in 2003, where it sat next door to the building the Tucson Citizen shared with the Arizona Daily Star before the Citizen shut down its daily news operations last year.

In some cases, companies providing specialized services are having a harder time adapting to the recession because they lack flexibility, Eby said.

"In a way, I realize of course that they're an icon business, but I'm not terribly surprised that they're closing, because of the size of their operation," Eby said of Arizona Sash & Door. "It's a big operation and set up for the time when things are moving and hopping and they can fill the supply and demand."

Contact reporter Andrea Kelly at 807-7790 or akelly@azstarnet.com