MONTEGO BAY, Jamaica – TILE City and Home Centre has formed an exclusive distribution partnership with American kitchen and bath products manufacturer, Kohler.

The local home improvement store hopes to open a 4,000-square-foot showroom in November. The Kohler Signature Store will be owned and operated by Tile City and will be located beside Tile City’s outlet in Constant Spring, Kingston.

Architects are in the final stage of designing the facility, according to Jaleel Handal, Tile City’s managing director.

Handal declined to disclose the cost of the new showroom, but told Caribbean Business Report that the investment is of a “reasonable size” and is a worthwhile venture based on consumer demand.

“The functionality of the products, along with their unique qualities are in keeping with current trends — people have been asking for Kohler products,” Handal said at a launch ceremony held at Cru Bar.

For instance, Kohler’s Moxie showerhead and wireless speaker, which brings electronics to the shower, allowing customers to pair it with devices such as a BlackBerry or iPhone as far as 25 feet away from the bathroom, is expected to be a hit on the domestic market. The product is fully functional outside the shower, and can be used as another speaker.

Products such as the Moxie showerhead entice consumers and are sold at the mid-price point, said Jim Lewis, director, emerging and strategic markets of Kohler for kitchen and bath Americas.

“Jamaica is the largest market where we didn’t have a direct distributor and Jamaican buyers take style and quality seriously,” he said. “Having products here and in stock is ideal.”

The company, which makes 30,000 products, also has distributors in the Cayman Islands, the Bahamas, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.

If an architect or designer wanted the products, they had to go to Miami for it, according to the Kohler director.

Furthermore, Kohler believed the local market had been lacking a high quality plumbing brand, said Philip Almeida, Kohler’s manager of sales and marketing in the Caribbean, Central and Latin America.

After meeting with Tile City, it was instantly noted that the local company’s strategy was to also bring high quality to the market and not necessarily volumes, he said.

Tile City offers a key differentiator from competitors in that they carry a large inventory of high-end products that many other suppliers can only offer through special orders. Adding Kohler to the mix puts Tile City’s offering in a class of its own in Jamaica, Kohler said.

Tile City was founded in 1999 and currently has two showrooms, one in Kingston and one in St Catherine. The company originally sold tiles, but in 2005, expanded through a partnership with the Do It Best Corp, a major US hardware company.