Even before the recession hit our economy and changed most economic equations radically, many retailing experts wondered about the future of big box retailing.\u00a0 The center of this focus revolved around the question of how many additional communities remained which were underserved or not yet served by these giant stores.<\/p>\n
To be clear this discussion centered primarily around chains approaching or exceeding 100,000 sq. ft. for proposed openings.\u00a0 Walmart circumvented this discussion to a degree with the success of its supercenters.\u00a0 Supercenters essentially combine the traditional Walmart discount store with a full-throttle supermarket.\u00a0 Thus two store types were basically combined, often replacing an aging traditional Walmart, in a community already proven in its ability to support a big box format.<\/p>\n
Home Center warehouses seemed another matter.\u00a0 Thus it was thought that future growth and expansion of the home center warehouse format would eventually run out of space(s).\u00a0 The question was how long down the line was eventually.\u00a0 The subprime crisis followed by the economically crippling recession essentially cut the timeframe surrounding this question to become a current event.<\/p>\n
In recent years, projected annual openings for Lowe\u2019s and Home Depot have been reduced to single digits or barely above that mark.\u00a0 Sure, a suddenly suffering economy with no clear end in sight was a big factor in these industry stars virtually shuttering expansions.\u00a0 Additionally however, communities which still had the population to seemingly support these respective locations, no longer sported the wealth.\u00a0 Worse, home sales and home building were virtually non-existent in many recently affluent communities.\u00a0 Underwater was now a term more commonly referred to in terms of mortgage problems than a troublesome boating adventure.<\/p>\n
When Lowe\u2019s acquired Orchard Supply Hardware two years ago, many saw an opportunity for the company to expand despite these big box doldrums.\u00a0 Orchard operates unique hardware locations coming in at around 40,000 sq. ft. per store.\u00a0 Still these are not nearly as comprehensive in their variety of offerings as can be seen through typical home center warehouses.\u00a0 While Orchard enjoys strong customer followings near its locations in California and Oregon, few outside the areas are at all familiar with Orchard.<\/p>\n
Now Lowe\u2019s is entering Manhattan with a format which has been nearly two years in the planning.\u00a0 Lowe\u2019s has operated two stores in Brooklyn and one in Staten Island for years.\u00a0 These are fairly typical of Lowe\u2019s traditional stores and offerings.\u00a0 Manhattan however offers significantly different challenges than setting up in these outer boroughs.<\/p>\n
Manhattanites rent or own apartments.\u00a0 Most are expensive and often relatively tiny.\u00a0 Many residents of the other boroughs own houses.\u00a0 Also, apartments in these communities tend to be at least a bit larger and somewhat more reasonable in price\u00a0\u00a0 The economies of the outer boroughs seem able to support a true home center warehouse.\u00a0 Manhattan real estate costs and residential demographics make the opening of true home center warehouses fairly <\/strong>prohibitive.<\/p>\n Lowe\u2019s response to this is to open two unique locations in trendy Manhattan neighborhoods within the span of about a month.\u00a0 These locations were carefully planned to meet the costly challenges of opening and operating in essentially upscale residential centers, while anticipating the needs and expectations of their generally affluent consumers.<\/p>\n To this, Lowe\u2019s is about to debut a 30,000 sq. ft. location on New York\u2019s popular Upper West Side.\u00a0 Next month Lowe\u2019s will follow with a 38,000 sq. ft. opus in the burgeoning Chelsea district. \u00a0The company terms these locations as urban concepts.\u00a0 Lowe\u2019s feels that for residents living near one of these new locations, when requiring an outlet exceeding 100,000 sq. ft., they can visit one of the ten traditional Lowe\u2019s surrounding locations, outside the borough.<\/p>\n These new, relatively diminutive locations feature products intended to accommodate the small living spaces typically found in Manhattan.\u00a0 Many products to be promoted in these stores specifically offer ease of transport to respective homes on subways and buses, as is the norm for many in New York City.\u00a0 This includes items such as fold-up brooms mops and dustpans.<\/p>\n Other products designed for this population include fixtures and appliances such as compact bathroom vanities and an eight-foot-long kitchen counter that comprises a sink, 18-inch dishwasher, oven, stovetop, a compact refrigerator and a freezer tucked under the counter.\u00a0 Unique local services include professional cutting which allows curtains to remain in the box as they\u2019re trimmed, so they\u2019re easy to transport home.<\/p>\n The limited selling space offered by these new locations is compensated for by state-of-the-art technology which adds to the store\u2019s limited stock.\u00a0 This includes a seven-foot-high \u201cNext Aisle Over\u201d touchscreen which allows shoppers to virtually inspect dozens of other models of major appliances, in addition to what they see on the sales floor. The customer can tap the screen to spin a full-size image of said appliance for a 360 degrees study from every angle, or swipe a door \u00a0to open and close it or to look around inside. This works for all large appliances.<\/p>\n Home Depot has operated two locations in Manhattan for some time.\u00a0 The company describes these as Warehouse-like, though they are far closer in scope to traditional home center warehouses than are the new Lowe\u2019s units.<\/p>\n Lowe\u2019s has spent many months creating a hopefully more efficient retail offering in a challenging real estate environment.\u00a0 Success could lead to other formats designed to foster growth in other communities with big box aspirations if not spaces.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Even before the recession hit our economy and changed most economic equations radically, many retailing experts wondered about the future of big box retailing.\u00a0 The center of this focus revolved around the question of how many additional communities remained which were underserved or not yet served by these giant stores. To be clear this discussion… Continue reading A Unique Lowe's Enters Manhattan, Twice<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"post-template-no-sidebar.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[5],"class_list":["post-5223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-home-hardware","tag-insight","entry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5223\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}