Dynamic Earth adds Kansas City location

Dynamic Earth, which opened in 2003 at 3036 S. Fremont Ave, opened a second location Nov. 10 in Overland Park, Kan., southwest of Kansas City.

The second store, in the recently completed The Shoppes at Deer Creek Woods shopping center about six miles east of Interstate 35, incorporates many of the design and building techniques that will be included in the company’s new store in the Green Circle Shopping Center, 1110 E. Republic Road.

That store is set to open after the Green Circle center is completed in February.

“The way this store (in Overland Park) looks is very much the way the store in Green Circle will look,” O’Reilly said. “It has reclaimed wood fixtures, cool bathrooms with high-efficiency fixtures, and a bouldering wall in the middle of the store that turns into the cash counter.”

O’Reilly said he chose the location for the second store through his custom search technique: Google.

“I go to Google Earth, look for the highest concentration of coffee shops, Barnes & Noble and a couple of other high-end stores, and that’s where we like to plop down,” he said with a chuckle. “It’s kind of cheating – instead of doing all the demographic work, we set our sights on where they go.”

Four employees work at the Overland Park store, positioned next to a Starbucks at Metcalf Avenue and 135th Street, which cost $300,000 for the infill plus inventory costs, O’Reilly said. Several employees travel between the two stores.

One traveling employee is Matt Lyons, Dynamic Earth general manager. Lyons, who has been with the company for two years, said the travel doesn’t deter him.

“Traveling between Kansas City and Springfield is fun because it mixes things up, and I get to meet new people,” Lyons said.

“It’s also a necessity – between Matt and I traveling up there, we are trying to implant our culture and beliefs into that store. It truly is a Dynamic Earth – it’s not just a store with the same name.”

Expansion into Overland Park is just the first of many journeys for Dynamic Earth, O’Reilly said. The company is beginning the move to an employee-ownership model in 2008 in order to keep expansion moving ahead, O’Reilly said.

“The No. 1 problem in this industry is employee turnover – it’s all climbers and college kids, and everyone is on the move,” he said. “The way to combat that is to give them a stake in the business. The only way to make that work is to have a plan for the immediate future, so that they have something to work for.”[[In-content Ad]]