Lowe\u2019s, like most progressive companies in this industry, grew impressively through the booming 1990\u2019s.\u00a0 This pace of growth actually increased through the early part of the new millennium.\u00a0 During this latter period, analysts began to wonder how many communities remained non-served or underserved by big boxes.<\/p>\n
The big box retailers in question were not limited only to the likes of Lowe\u2019s, Home Depot and Menard in this industry.\u00a0 The likes of Walmart, Kmart and Target also came into question.\u00a0 The contention here was that in order to properly support a big box, a community needed to offer a complex picture of demographic values.\u00a0 At the top of the list were a vast population and finances.\u00a0 Not far behind was the need for significant parcels of available and affordable land.<\/p>\n
This land had to offer more than just enough space to accommodate at least 100,000 sq. ft. for a big box store.\u00a0 In the case of home center warehouses, significantly more space was required to accommodate the additions of a sizeable lumberyard, and outdoor plots from which to display all that can be offered in terms of lawn and garden, plants and flowers and all the devices employed to keep them healthy, including a growing variety of sizeable lawn mowers.\u00a0 Cumbersome outdoor power equipment and landscaping staples added to spatial requirements.<\/p>\n
Of course, one can\u2019t forget about the area needed for parking.\u00a0 In this industry, parking requirements are exacerbated by the grand vehicles employed by the professionals which the warehouse hopes to serve.\u00a0 Then too space is needed to accommodate large loading docks to serve professionals as well as consumers looking to cart-off ever more popular flooring, cabinets, furniture and major appliances.<\/p>\n
With all this heavy commerce, professional clients and shoppers must have easy driving access to these destinations.\u00a0 Thus a plan for an efficiently, well-trafficked area must be taken into account.<\/p>\n
When Lowe\u2019s acquired Orchard Supply Hardware two years ago, the acquisition was seen as a likely answer to the expansion challenges of the home center warehouse community.\u00a0 Thus far, while Orchard, under Lowe\u2019s guise, has embraced an impressive new 40,000 sq. ft. prototype and opened a few new locations, Orchard has yet to venture far outside its pre-Lowe\u2019s territories in California and Oregon.<\/p>\n
Last month Chain Store Guide<\/strong> ran an Insight in this space titled, A Unique Lowe\u2019s Enters Manhattan, Twice<\/em><\/strong>.<\/a>\u00a0 This piece profiled Lowe\u2019s two newest locations, both in Manhattan.\u00a0 Coming in at 30,000 sq. ft. followed by a 38,000 sq. ft. location, these diminutive formats may well be the future, as Lowe\u2019s hopes to open in prosperous communities which cannot adequately accommodate a true big box.\u00a0 Of course with real estate values in New York, these smaller Lowe\u2019s formats become all the more desirable.<\/p>\n Recently Lowe\u2019s won a bidding war.\u00a0 Thus the company won the right to acquire a dozen stores which had been abandoned when Target suddenly left Canada earlier this year.\u00a0 While this acquisition was certainly considered to be a bargain, these locations had been studied by Lowe\u2019s and selected after their respective communities were deemed by the company as being underserved and in need of a store which traditional Lowe\u2019s seek to offer.\u00a0 Thus in a moment, after careful study, Lowe\u2019s found itself with its greatest single expansion in years.\u00a0 No matter that it was north of any border, Lowe\u2019s is growing as it has long hoped to.<\/p>\n This expansion was well calculated as to respective community needs and potential.\u00a0 While purchasing the former Target locations, Lowe\u2019s announced the purchase of two additional parcels in Canada to complete this round of expansion and truly prepare to serve across Canada, a mission Target was unable to complete.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Lowe\u2019s, like most progressive companies in this industry, grew impressively through the booming 1990\u2019s.\u00a0 This pace of growth actually increased through the early part of the new millennium.\u00a0 During this latter period, analysts began to wonder how many communities remained non-served or underserved by big boxes. The big box retailers in question were not limited… Continue reading Where Home Center Warehouses Can Still Roam<\/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-5300","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\/5300","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=5300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5300\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}