Staff report

WARREN – Levin Furniture stores in Niles and in Boardman are not part of a deal in bankruptcy court that will keep some of the chain’s stores open.

Dallas-based US Assets Inc. and its affiliate, Loves Furniture in Royal Oak, Mich., acquired the inventory and assets of 27 former Art Van Furniture, Levin Furniture and Wolf Furniture stores and plan to rebrand them Loves Furniture. The deal is worth about $6.9 million.

The stores are in Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Virginia and Maryland, but neither of the stores in the Mahoning Valley are part of the initial group of leases in the acquisition, according to a statement from Loves Furniture.

Meanwhile, the bankruptcy proceedings of Art Van Furniture, which owned the two local Levin stores, were converted in April from Chapter 11 restructuring to Chapter 11 liquidation.

When Art Van closed in March, it planned to close most of its stores, but within a few days of filing, the COVID-19 outbreak struck, causing Art Van to move to liquidation under stress of stay-at-home orders and the closure of nonessential businesses.

In early March, Robert Levin, former president and owner of Pittsburgh-based Levin, announced he was going to reacquire the company and save it from going out of business, but the deal with Art Van fell through amid the virus pandemic.

Levin went on then to create a $2 million fund to help employees of former Levin stores who lost their jobs in the Art Van bankruptcy.

Warren, Mich.-based Art Van Furniture, LLC bought Levin Furniture in 2017. The next year, Levin Furniture took over Goldsteins Furniture stores in Niles, Boardman and in Hermitage, Pa.

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