Clint Engel — Furniture Today
FIRESTONE, Colo. — American Furniture Warehouse is putting the finishing touches on the first of two planned 530,000-square-foot “Super Center” stores here, with an opening slated for Nov. 6.
The store in Firestone — near Longmont, Colo., and about halfway between Thornton and Fort Collins, north of Denver — is a $30 million project and a new format for the Top 100 company, now with 11 promotional to midpriced stores in the state.
It features a 350,000-square-foot warehouse and two 88,000-square-foot showroom levels. The upper level is a traditional showroom, while the lower floor is an Ikea-like self-service area, where consumers will help themselves to American’s expanding ready-to-assemble lines, housewares, gifts and other take-with traffic items.
“Today’s shopper demands great value and selection, but they also want to be left alone and take whatever they purchase with them,” said Jake Jabs, president and CEO of the Englewood, Colo.-based American. “I think we accomplished all of it.”
He projected the store will do about $50 million in annual sales early and eventually will become a $70 million store. Excluding the new store, American is on track for a $30 million sales increase this year, to about $368 million or nearly 8% ahead of the 2012 total.
Jabs estimated American will do about $400 million next year, even with some cannibalization by Firestone from its Thornton and Fort Collins showrooms.
The newest store will have two sets of escalators to carry shoppers between the two showroom floors. Uniformed employees will be available on the self-service level to help consumers cart big items.
The self-serve area will mostly feature RTA items that American already carries. But Jabs added that he has been buying for the store, too, and will add new products to his other stores as well.
Among the new merchandise: iJoy massage chairs that American plans to sell for $398, other small chairs and bedding, including a new airbed from Therapedic that Jabs said competes well with Select Comfort’s line.
A Mexican-style cantina will be on the lower level with an expanded assortment of Mexico-made rustico furniture, accessories and gift items, including colorful margarita glasses and pitchers. Jabs said Colorado’s Hispanic population has grown to 20% of the state’s total population, “and we feel we can get more of that business.”
Jabs said he has traveled across the country to gain inspiration from other big-box retailers, and noted that the new store is designed, in part, to compete with nontraditional and new retailers of furniture, such as Wal-Mart, Costco, T.J. Maxx and Stein Mart. There’s even a grocery store in Arizona that’s now 25% furniture, he said.
The American store also targets a thriving area of the state made up of a series of smaller cities, including Longmont, Greeley and Loveland, with a combined population of 300,000 people that is expected to double over the next seven years.
Many of the goods in the RTA area are imports from China, where Jabs spends a lot of his buying time, and other countries. Import sources include VAS for television stands; IDUSA for chests, computer desks, curios and occasional tables; Riley Holiday, an Asian source of home office and entertainment furniture; Shund for home office and storage pieces; South Shore bedroom chests out of Canada; Tvilum-Scanbirk of Denmark; and Sauder’s import division.
Other key suppliers to the store include Ashley — American’s largest supplier — Lane, Sealy, Stratolounger and Corin-thian, and Sealy and Therapedic in bedding. Jabs sold his Loren Mitchell upholstery plant almost two years ago and it later went out of business. He said he “saw the writing on the wall,” and noted that more and more of American’s upholstery is coming out of China.
A second American super center planned for the Colorado Springs area had been on hold, but Jabs said those plans are kicking back into gear. American is evaluating sites and expects to be open in that area in about a year.
Jabs is in High Point this week in buying mode — looking for special, quick-ship deals on goods he can blow out during the Firestone store’s grand opening next month.
The company said dozens of manufacturers already are participating in planned giveaways during the event, including Sealy, Lane and Ashley. The grand prize will be a custom-painted Corvette valued at nearly $70,000.
