Blog

Aug 02, 2023

Urban Industrial Design moves into new Colonie warehouse

Urban Industrial Design — a custom furniture business that has made conference

Urban Industrial Design — a custom furniture business that has made conference tables for Airosmith Development and dining tables for the restaurant Seneca — has moved into a new 10,000-square-foot warehouse in Colonie.

It's a big step up from where owner Brian Seitz started the business seven years ago, making furniture and wine racks for friends and family out of his one-car garage.

Seitz built the new warehouse at 208 Morris Road last year after he purchased the property with permits ready to build. Capital Bank and Pursuit financed the project. Urban Industrial Design moved into the new warehouse in January.

The new warehouse has given Urban Industrial Design the space to purchase a dry kiln, have a small retail space for walk-in or custom residential clients and it provides room for Seitz's growing side business that produces floating wood shelves.

Seitz started to experiment making furniture after buying his first house. His first project was a wine rack. After encouragement from family and friends, Seitz started selling the wine racks on Etsy. He soon graduated to bigger projects, making tables for friends and family.

At the time, Seitz was working in design engineering for an alternative energy company when the business abruptly shut down its Albany operations. Instead of finding another engineering job, he decided to pursue the custom furniture business full time.

The business grew out of his garage quickly, to a larger shop, before purchasing the land to build the new warehouse last year. Seven years after Seitz started woodworking, he now has five employees between two businesses.

"I stumbled upon it, and was able to make full-time work through love and passion," Seitz said. "I was fortunate to find what drives me."

Urban Industrial Design's focus is on designing and building custom conference tables with special details, such as including a company's logo, mixing wood and epoxy or leaving the edge of the table raw. Urban Industrial Design builds around four to five tables a month.

Seitz has built custom conference tables for local companies like Airosmith Development, Thoroughbred Advisors, and Field Realty; and has built bars and dining tables for restaurants like Seneca and Cantina in Saratoga.

The average conference table costs around $6,500, though he's sold tables for prices up to $30,000. Residential custom orders cost around $4,500 to $5,000.

Seitz sources all of his wood from local homeowners and tree service companies to responsibly acquire the material. He then mills the wood and dry kilns it himself. It takes about a year for the wood to dry out to be ready to kiln and turn into a table.

Recent projects include everything from a live-edge conference table he's building for an out-of-state law firm to a "river table" made of two slabs of wood and blue epoxy for a new home in Catskill.

Seitz has a side business too, under a different business name, that sells $49 floating shelves on websites like Wayfair. That business exploded during the pandemic, when people were looking to upgrade their homes. They ship out around 150 units of that product a day.

He plans to expand retail sales out of the new warehouse, including selling extra wood to hobbyists.

On Saturday, April 22, the business has its once-a-year yard sale, selling already-made tables.