Jordan’s Furniture New Haven store to feature largest indoor ropes course in world Jordan’s Furniture store to include ropes course, ziplines, water show

NEW HAVEN >> “It” is being billed as the largest indoor adventure ropes course in the world.

Jordan’s Furniture announced Wednesday that the entertainment component on Sargent Drive will feature a 60-foot-high ropes course on four levels with more than 100 activities.

“It” will be connected through four ziplines 200 feet long and 48 feet high, which the company said is the longest SkyRails ever constructed.

Patrons can zip over the $2 million, 1,000-nozzle water show as a light and sound production, created by Clair Solutions, the company that designed Radio Music Hall, The Grand Ol Opry and the Michael Jackson Tour, plays beneath them.

The entertainment center and the furniture store will open at 5 p.m. Dec. 11, the sixth location for the company, which is known for its attractions as well as its retail.

“It is as much fun to watch as it is to do,” said Eliot Tatelman, president of the company, a showman who led the press as well as business and city officials in a tour of Jordan’s, located in the former New Haven Register building.

During a tour Wednesday, Eliot Tatelman, Jordan’s Furniture president and CEO, stands in front of the choreographed water show component of the It adventure ropes course under construction at 40 Sargent Drive in New Haven. less During a tour Wednesday, Eliot Tatelman, Jordan’s Furniture president and CEO, stands in front of the choreographed water show component of the It adventure ropes course under construction at 40 Sargent ... more Photo: Peter Hvizdak — New Haven Register Photo: Peter Hvizdak — New Haven Register Image 1 of / 60 Caption Close Jordan’s Furniture New Haven store to feature largest indoor ropes course in world 1 / 60 Back to Gallery

“It” is under construction in the four-story, 30,000-square-foot space where the presses for the newspaper once were located in the 192,500-square-foot building.

Tatelman, a larger-than-life character, kept the entertainment section a secret until Wednesday.

His company, founded in 1918 by his grandfather, started the entertainment attraction as part of its marketing approach in 1992 in its Avon, Massachusetts, store when they put in a Motion Odyssey Movie Ride.

The company said it has attracted more than 1 million visitors there. Tatelman predicted 1.5 million people will visit the New Haven location.

Features at other stores include: a Mardi Gras/Bourbon Street element, a 275-seat IMAX 3D theater, a city made of jellybeans and an indoor trapeze school.

The food component here will be Blaze Pizza from California, and Scoop It, an ice cream store from Massachusetts, which Tatelman said features more than 50 flavors and is a 6th-generation family business of dairy farmers.

Blaze has one price for any pizza, no matter how many toppings, with the pie ready in 3 minutes out of its 800-degree oven, he said.

“It will be a happening,” Tatelman said. “Every kid is going to want to have a birthday party here.”

Tatelman said local pizza restaurants, such as Pepe’s and the others on Wooster Street, did not want to come a mile from their original location.

He said they went after one, but “it was a quick no. We knew it wasn’t the right thing.”

Pizza and ice cream were the perfect items to attract families, he said.

Tatelman envisions school groups and teams coming to the center, as well as corporations for team-building exercises. He said they will make the center, which can accommodate several hundred people, available to charities.

“It just happens to work out that you have to walk through this beautiful street of furniture to get to ‘It.’ Funny how things happen,” Tatelman said of a strategy that has worked at his stores in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island.

Jordan’s will be leasing 36,000 square feet over two floors in the front of the building, which faces Interstate 95, to other businesses. Tatelman said he wants something unique, such as American Girl. The owner said they have not marketed it yet.

“We wanted to get open first to bring the people and the traffic here,” Tatelman said.

Asked why he chose the name “It” for the entertainment area, Tatelman didn’t explain it except to say: “We went through a lot of names, trust me, a lot of names.”

The company will hire some 250 people at the New Haven store and has 1,200 employees company wide. Several training sessions have been held to get potential workers up to speed.

New Haven is Jordan’s first and likely only location in Connecticut, the president and CEO said.

Mayor Toni Harp said she has high hopes that the entertainment component “will lead to destination shopping to a greater extent than ever before. We are also pleased by Jordan’s instant track record in terms of community involvement.”

Jordan’s recently donated truckloads of mattresses to the city’s firehouses.

“I am told ... it’s better than the beds at home,” she said.

He said the New Haven Register site was the right size and had the right amount of visibility for what they had in mind. They have a 100-year lease from Digital First Media, which owns the Register.

“We want to draw people from everywhere, 100 miles away,” Tatelman said.

The owner said “It” is “its own profit center.”

“This is not free,” he said. “You are going to have to pay to do this.”

He said they are working on that, possibly charging by the hour or by all day.

“We are not quite sure yet, because it has not ever been done,” he said.

The 65-foot main rig where the rope games and ziplines will start was already built at either end of the entertainment section.

One of the options is a 50-foot free fall, in which a patron can jump with a harness that catches them.

“I’m not doing it,” Tatelman said.

Participants are always harnessed as they zip from one end of the room to the other.

There also will be a catwalk, some 30 feet up, where a customer can walk from one end to the other. There are no railings, but customers will always be harnessed.

“You can’t fall,” Tatelman said. “No matter where you go, what you do, you cannot fall.”

There also will be a smaller version of the ropes course for children under 4 feet tall, where parents can walk alongside.

“Little ‘It’ is for kids. As long as they can walk, they can do it,” he said.

“We have something here for everybody,” Tatelman said.

The owner characterized the water show, which shoots up 45 feet, as probably the largest on the East Coast, with more than 100 lights choreographed to music.

“It’s mesmerizing. Sit and have an ice cream, watch the water show,” he advised.

Four separate activities will be offered at one level labeled “Climb it.”

“Stairway to Heaven” has steel poles and the object is to climb 45 feet up by stepping from one pole to the other with nothing to hold onto, although again, you will be harnessed.

Astroballs, some 45 feet in the air, have handles and the object is again to climb to the top. “Jump It” is a red and white pole that a customer climb. Twenty-feet out in front is a platform where there is a punching bag. The object is to jump to it and try to catch it.

“Twister” goes up 45 feet in a spiral shape that customers are invited to climb, and the 50-foot free fall is called “Leap of Faith.”

In 1999, Jordan’s sold the company to Warren Buffett, chairman/CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., who plans to visit the new retail center in New Haven at a private party Dec. 10.

Operationally, Tatelman said the management structure remained the same with Buffett giving them a free hand to develop what they want.

“He doesn’t even know what I am doing. He doesn’t know about any of this,” Tatelman said looking around his new location. “He will be here for the opening and he will walk in for the first time to see it.”

He described his relationship with the billionaire as “great.” He said he wouldn’t have sold the business if he were not able to keep his hand in it.

“I’m an entrepreneur. I like to do what I want to do,” Tatelman said.

BL Companies of Meriden did the architectural and engineering work. The construction work began in early May.