Rex Glass making presence known in Zelienople
Rex Glass & Mirror, one of Pittsburgh’s premier custom glass showrooms, is making its presence felt in Zelienople about two years into opening their third location in the area.
Rex Glass has been around Pittsburgh for a long time, 65 years to be exact, but have been limited mostly to the South Hills with its original location along Route 19 in McMurray and its second location opening in Crafton in 1997. It wasn’t until new the appointment of current CEO Micheal J. Schmitz in 2012, a fourth-generation member of the family, that the idea of expanding north came to fruition.
“One of the things for us is that we’ve never really had a physical presence in the North Hills,” said John Kimicata, chief operating officer, who grew up in Ross Township in the 1980s and ’90s. “That was a big thing for me, as someone who grew up in the North Hills, seeing Cranberry (Township) growing since I was a child. We need to have a presence up here.”
With the help of Kimicata, who assumed his COO role right before the pandemic, the third location was picked out and set to be launch in 2020. However, the COVID-19 pandemic threw a wrench in the plans. It didn’t destroy plans for the new location, however, it pushed opening day back to 2021.
“(The new location) was something the pandemic paused for a full year-plus,” Kimicata said. “We were a day away from signing the lease in Jackson Pointe when the shutdown happened. So it basically set us back a year plus from opening that facility.”
Now though, the showroom is open and the team at Rex Glass & Mirror are able to bring North Hills residents the same amount of detail to home glasswork that it brought to South Hills for over 60 years.
While many may associate home glasswork with window panes, that actually isn’t the cornerstone of their business. The major draw of their showrooms comes from the indoor needs of glass, such as shower doors, glass railings, wine cellar doors, mirrors and glass shelves.
“We work with a lot of the homebuilders in the region, a lot of the remodelers,” Kimicata said. “We’ve been around since 1958, we’re a fourth-generation family business.”
But it wasn’t always about glass. In fact the original business started out as Rex Paint & Glass at the 1958 McMurray location. Founder Joseph Rectenwald Sr. — along with his sons, Donald Sr., Joseph Jr. and Charles — recognized that majority of his business came from residential and commercial glass jobs and made the decision to cut the paint, along with autoglass, and went all-in on the glass, with the name officially changing in 1980.
That decision has led to a thriving business for the Rectenwald family, many of whom still work in some capacity at the company. There’s been three branches of the Rectenwald family to run the company with the fourth president being the son-in-law to Donald Jr., the third Rectenwald to assume that rule. It’s a generational family business from the day it started in 1958.
“Some of the current generation are the owners,” said Kimicata who started with the company in a smaller role in 2005. “One of the current generation is the president of the company, another is the vice president of production. Another is the showroom manager of the store in Peters Township.
“The family has been great to me since Day One. I’ve enjoyed growing with the company. We try to make everyone feel like family. We have installers that are on year 39 working with us.”
The company offers many different services and provides examples of such services at their showrooms. There’s also a shop at their showrooms, allowing people to purchase items such as paint. But it’s glass that is their specialty.
They were one of the first companies in Pittsburgh to do all glass showers when they started offering the product in the 1980s.
