Two more home-improvement stores to open

by Karen E. Culp

SBJ Staff

Do-it-yourselfers and construction companies will have two more places to shop later this year.

Lowe's plans to open a second store on the north side of Springfield and Home Depot plans to open its first Springfield store in the James River Towne Center.

Lowe's will open at its site on North Kansas Expressway, on the other side of Interstate 44 from the Wal-Mart Supercenter, in October, said Jule Schreffler, spokeswoman for Lowe's. The 150,000-square-foot store will also have a 30,000-square-foot lawn-and-garden center. The store will be about 20,000 square feet larger than the southside Lowe's, Schreffler said.

Springfield has been a vibrant market for the home-improvement store, Schreffler said.

"About two to three years ago, we were looking to enter more metropolitan areas, and Springfield was and continues to be an excellent market for us," Schreffler said.

One difference in the new Lowe's store is that it will add some of the home decor lines that the company has recently introduced, Schreffler said.

About 15 percent to 20 percent of Lowe's business comes from contractors and commercial customers, while the remainder is from do-it-yourself, walk-in retail customers, Schreffler said.

"We have a lot of special services for the commercial customers. They have a separate entrance, and we have programs to pull orders for them so they're ready when they arrive," Schreffler said.

The new store will be about a $5 million investment in the community for Lowe's, Schreffler said. It will employ 175 to 200 employees, about 80 percent of whom will be full-time. Hiring for the new store will begin about three months before it opens, and the new employees will probably be trained at the southside Lowe's store, Schreffler said.

Lowe's is a 53-year-old business with 531 stores in 37 states. Its headquarters is in Wilkesboro, N.C., and it is the second largest chain of its kind in the United States.

The largest home improvement store chain is Home Depot, which plans to open a store where the Hooters restaurant now stands in the James River Towne Center. Hooters will move a few doors down and is working on its new site. Home Depot hopes to open its first Springfield store by the fourth quarter of this year, said Don Harrison, public relations manager for Home Depot.

Home Depot's store will be 114,000 square feet inside and have an 18,000-square-foot outdoor garden area, Harrison said. The store should employ 120 to 150 full- and part-time associates, he added.

"The stores carry a range of more than 50,000 products, from garden, to building materials, to interior decorating," Harrison said.

Home Depot's business is also divided between do-it-yourselfers and commercial builders. About 70 percent of its business comes from retail customers, while the remaining 30 percent comes from "small contractors and remodelers. Most of our commercial customers are not the major contractors," Harrison said.

Home Depot evaluates a market for as long as four years before choosing to open a store, Harrison said.

"A lot of the criteria we use when we're considering opening a store is just good common sense. We look at any of our competitors who are there and how well they are doing, and then we look at whether there's a sufficient population and if there's a friendly business environment. If we feel that people would welcome a Home Depot there, then we start looking for a building site," Harrison said.

Home Depot has 822 stores and was founded in 1978 in Atlanta, Ga., where it maintains its headquarters. Harrison said the chain is opening an average of one store every 53 hours, and it plans to double the number of stores it operates by the end of 2002. Lowe's is its nearest competitor in size, Harrison said.

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