Clint Engel — Furniture Today,
SEFFNER, Fla. — Rooms To Go CEO Jeff Seaman confirmed Tuesday that the retailer will enter the hotly contested Houston market early next year with its first four stores.

The Top 100 company, which already has stores in Austin, San Antonio and the Dallas/Fort Worth markets, said it has started construction on two stores in Baybrook and Willowbrook areas of Houston.

It expects to have these and two more in Sugar Land and The Woodlands shopping area open some time during the first quarter of next year. Each store will be about 40,000 square feet and will be combination RTG stores with attached Rooms To Go Kids & Teens units.

“We’re pretty excited about it,” Seaman said. “Texas is an area that Rooms To Go has room to expand in, and we’ve been thinking about Houston for some time.”

RTG has real estate in various stages of development there, but has shied away from announcing its plans until it could nail down the critical warehouse piece.

Now, Seaman said, the company is finalizing plans to build a 1.4 million-square-foot distribution center in west Houston at one of two sites under consideration. The facility should open about a year after the first stores. Until then, RTG will service Houston through its Dallas distribution center.

How many more stores the company will need in greater Houston is uncertain, Seaman said, but added that it’s “a lot more than four” and that the retailer already is negotiating on two more store sites.

He said he believes the market should be similar to Dallas, where RTG has six main stores, two clearance centers and four Kids & Teens units. Two more Dallas stores will open over the next two years.

Seaman would not disclose RTG’s investment in Houston nor its projected sales there. Furniture/Today estimates the retailer’s full build-out investment in Houston, including the distribution center, will exceed $100 million

“It’s a very big market, and growing, but it’s competitive,” Seaman said, noting the likes of Top 100 rivals Finger Furniture, Star, Gallery Furniture and The RoomStore, as well as small but strong independents and Ashley Furniture HomeStores, which Finger recently began opening there.

He said Houston reminds him of South Florida, which also is teeming with strong competitors, but is a market where Rooms To Go has carved out its share of sales.

“There are a lot of good competitors (in Houston), but there is a lot of business there — we hope,” said Seaman.

RTG is No 2 on Furniture/Today’s Top 100 with estimated furniture bedding and accessories sales last year of $1.76 billion at 116 stores in Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Texas and Alabama and a franchise store in Puerto Rico.