BUSINESS
April 5, 2013 | By Tiffany Hsu
Specialty sporting goods store Sport Chalet Inc. is now offering same-day delivery service, hopping on a crowded bandwagon that includes Amazon, Wal-Mart, Google and EBay. “Sometimes there just is not enough time for a customer to visit our stores, and this new service solves that problem,” Craig Levra, chief executive of the 53-store chain, said in a statement. The La Cañada Flintridge-based company also does brisk business renting sports equipment to customers. And for those reluctant to haul the goods back to a Sport Chalet store themselves, the company said it will “drive to their home or office and retrieve the gear for them.” The new program is in place in most of California as well as in the Phoenix, Las Vegas and Salt Lake City areas.
NEWS
March 12, 2013 | By Adam Tschorn
To mark its inaugural sponsorship of the Los Angeles Marathon -- and acknowledge the fact that it's taking place on St. Patrick's Day -- Irvine-based Asics has released a limited-edition running shoe. The commemorative kicks are a version of the brand's GEL-Lyte33 2 with uppers in a holiday-appropriate shade of green with either purple or orange accent colors on the outsole and lining. In addition, both versions have what from afar looks like a confetti-covered midsole but upon closer examination is actually a colorful map-like graphic (think a smudged page from an old Thomas Guide map book, if you remember those)
BUSINESS
December 10, 2012 | By Shan Li
First there was surfing Santa Claus and hockey-playing Santa. Now St. Nick is strapping on an oxygen tank to take photos underwater with shoppers at Sport Chalet. The sporting goods chain, based in La Canada, is offering customers a free photo op with a scuba diving Santa on Dec. 15. at several stores including locales in Irvine, La Canada and Rancho Cucamonga. "All this is required is a smile, swimsuit, and towel," the company said in a statement. The scuba diving is limited to those 10 years old and over, although younger kids hoping to gurgle a few Christmas wishes can opt to snorkel with the big guy in the red suit.
BUSINESS
June 10, 2012 | By Roger Vincent
Sport Chalet Inc., a longtime Southern California sporting goods retailer, has agreed to open a store in downtown Los Angeles. The La Canada Flintridge company will put an outlet in Figat7th, a mall at the intersection of Figueroa and Seventh streets undergoing a $40-million makeover by landlord Brookfield Office Properties. Sports Chalet will join Target as anchors in the mall, which is set to reopen in the fall. Target Inc. announced in 2010 that it would take over space formerly occupied by Macy's and Bullock's department stores.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
July 19, 2011 | By Salvador Rodriguez, Los Angeles Times
Norbert Olberz, founder of the Southern California-based Sport Chalet chain of outdoor recreational equipment stores, died of natural causes Friday at his home in La Cañada Flintridge, the company announced. He was 86. As chief executive for four decades, Olberz transformed Sport Chalet from a small local business into a large public company that operates 55 stores in California, Arizona, Nevada and Utah. Born in the village of Niederhoevels, Germany, in 1925, Olberz arrived in the United States in 1955.
BUSINESS
July 9, 2011 | Roger Vincent
The Olberz family, founders of the beleaguered Sport Chalet sporting goods chain, have sold their La Canada Flintridge mall to a Los Angeles investment firm for more than $40 million -- significantly less than what the project cost to build. La Canada Flintridge Town Center, completed in 2008, was built for about $60 million by the Olberz family's company La Canada Properties Inc. during the peak of the last real estate boom. Sport Chalet will continue to be a tenant in the mall.