The Chelsea Standard
A Heritage Newspaper
Weekly Publication
Chelsea Rentals throws itself a party
By Edward Freundl, Staff Writer
PUBLISHED: May 1, 2008
The big party tent is up, just waiting for the big party to begin.
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And that will happen Saturday, when Chelsea Party & Project Rentals opens up its one-year anniversary celebration to the public.
The event will take place from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 20401 Old US-12, just west of the Chelsea Fairgrounds.
The location will be hard to miss, though, with the massive white tent, the huge inflatable moonwalk, and the array of other equipment that owner Chris Livengood offers to the public.
Discount specials, food and door prizes will be available throughout the day. Visitors will be able to sample concession and food items prepared with rental equipment and view a variety of product demonstrations.
Chelsea Party & Project Rentals opened its doors in early May 2007, becoming Western Washtenaw and Eastern Jackson County's only full-service rental store.
Livengood said she opened the business to offer the community an option to having to drive to full-service rental stores in Ann Arbor or Jackson.
Besides, she already had the beginnings of her inventory on hand. She said she had a big party coming up, but had waited too long to rent a tent and had to buy a couple of them.
In addition, her middle son had been developing a landscape business when he was permanently disabled in a freak accident.
"So here was his big barn and all this equipment, and I thought, 'I should start a rental store,'" Livengood said.
"I started researching and visited other stores, and found there wasn't one in Chelsea."
You can find a place to rent party supplies and a place to rent equipment, but none put the two together - until last May.
"This is the first complete rental store, we incorporated our son's equipment," she said.
"Business is great."
Livengood estimated that 60 percent of her business is party rental, which is just entering its busy season.
But her business plan also included a way to get her through the winter.
"Winter is a little slow, but we knew that going into it; that's why we we're a dealer for Harman stoves," she said.
"The pellet stoves have been a great sell this winter."
That steady cash flow is important to pay down the enormous investment she has tied up in rental equipment.
"If you can imagine it, people call and want to rent it," she said.
Chelsea Rentals has 1,000 chairs, 150 tables of various sizes, tents ranging from a 10-by-10-foot pop-up to a 40-by-80 wedding tent, popcorn machines, sno-cone and slushee makers, cotton candy machines and more.
And that's just for parties.
"We have four big investments: the trencher, the chipper-shredder, the stump grinder and the big wedding tent," Livengood said.
"We have a 'bull float' for contractors for finishing concrete, but we haven't had a call for it yet."
Rental stores also tend to network with each other, Livengood said, and if a customer requests a particular item and she doesn't have it, she will point them in the right direction.
It all goes back to her company motto, Livengood said:
"Why buy, maintain and store, when you can rent, return and be done?"
For more information on Chelsea Rentals, call 433-2212 or visit www.chelsearentals.biz.
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