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Pat & Mike�s to relocate photo by Bob Pennell They�ll sell hardware at Jacksonville Highway location By Bill Kettler One of Medford�s first one-stop building supply stores will move across town to a new location on Jacksonville Highway. Pat & Mike�s Builders Service, a fixture on Crater Lake Highway since 1957, will relocate to 2728 Jacksonville Highway. "We�re going to concentrate on being a hardware store," said company president Therese Paradis. Her grandfather started the business in 1957 and her father, Mike Fazio, operated it for years with her uncle, Pat Lynch. "We sold the property here a few years ago," Paradis said. "We�ve been leasing it and our lease got terminated. We needed to find another location." Hubbard�s Hardware, which purchased the property in 1998, plans to open a store at the site. Hubbard�s will continue to operate its stores in downtown Medford and on South Pacific Highway, said Bob Seus, a member of the family that owns Hubbard�s. Paradis said the new Pat & Mike�s will occupy the building that formerly housed Pool and Patio Place. The new Pat & Mike�s, at just 4,000 square feet, will be about one-fourth the size of the store on Crater Lake Highway, which served generations of Medford contractors and do-it-yourselfers. "We�ll have some lawn and garden and a little paint," Paradis said. "Mostly we�ll try to get heavier into plumbing and electrical. "The one thing we won�t do is lumber," she said, noting three lumber yards already exist along Jacksonville Highway. She said the store�s new location should attract customers from Jacksonville, Ruch and the Applegate Valley � people who have to drive through Medford to buy hardware, plumbing parts and electrical supplies. "There is no basic hardware store out there," she said. Paradis said Pat & Mike�s suffered when Eagle Hardware opened its big-box store in 1994 at Crater Lake Plaza. The family business had just finished enlarging its store when the chain opened barely a mile away. The expansion drove up overhead costs at the same time that Eagle cut into sales. "It�s difficult to compete against (a chain)," she said. "They�ve got a lot of stores they can draw money from. "People were awed by the selection (at Eagle)," she said. "Where we might have had two faucets, they would have 40 or 50." Paradis said the move should be complete within two weeks. The company will celebrate its 43rd anniversary with a sale beginning July 10. The same knowledgeable salespeople will staff the new store, she said. "Most of us have 10 to 15 years of experience. We�re not a bunch of high school kids." Obituaries | Sports | Business | Classifieds | Tempo | Prime Times | So Oregon Sites | Outdoor Journal | Subscribe | Contact | Movies | Advertise | Real Estate Showcase | Archive | Editorials | Letters to the editor | Religion | Wake-up Call | NIE | Cyber Chef | Job Network | So Oregon Weather | WSJ Northwest | Forums | AP Wire | AP Money | F.A.Q. | Awards Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. The Community Newspaper Subsidiary of Dow Jones & Co, Inc Copyright �The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA