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Home Depot coming to Manhattan


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Manhattan next for Home Depot

Search for sites: The big challenges are logistics and high real estate costs.

By TONY WILBERT

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Bloomberg News

The multilevel Home Depot store in the Lincoln Park section of Chicago is an effort to expand into dense urban markets.

http://img.coxnewsweb.com/B/05/27/42/image_142275.jpg

Home Depot is close to taking Manhattan, but several challenges remain.

The Atlanta-based home improvement chain, which has been searching for sites in the financial heart of New York for several months, is negotiating leases for its first two stores in Manhattan. One is at a building on West 23rd Street in the Flatiron District, and the other is in the new Bloomberg Tower on Lexington and Third avenues.

Home Depot has not yet disclosed specific plans for the sites, but an official announcement is expected within a week.

The company's move into Manhattan is part of Home Depot's strategy of opening stores in densely populated urban areas. Home Depot has urban-format stores in Brooklyn and Staten Island in New York City.

In April, the retailer opened a two-level store in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood.

Manhattan could prove to be a profitable market for Home Depot, said Bill Sims, an analyst at Smith Barney. Sales at the stores likely would be the chain's highest, on a square-foot basis.

"[Manhattan] might be a tremendous opportunity for them," Sims said. "I support the concept, provided the economics are right."

That means not paying exorbitant rates for space it leases or buys for stores, Sims said.

Home Depot also must figure out how to get large shipments into Manhattan's congested streets and provide parking for customers who drive, said Aram Rubinson, an analyst at Banc of America Securities.

"It sounds like a logistical nightmare," Rubinson said.

Sims said he expects Home Depot's Manhattan stores to be a hybrid of its typical 108,000-square-foot warehouse "orange boxes" and the chain's upscale Expo Design Center locations. The urban stores offer Home Depot a way to differentiate itself from its top competitor, Lowe's, analysts said.

The North Carolina-based chain only recently opened stores in several metropolitan areas where Home Depot operates. Lowe's President Robert Niblock said the company has no plans to open stores in Manhattan.

Logistical concerns and real estate costs are two reasons Manhattan is not high on Lowe's list of new markets, Niblock said.

"We're constantly looking at all areas of the company, but Manhattan just gets very, very expensive," Niblock said. "There's a number of logistical issues you run into with the congestion and everything else. It will be a very difficult [market] to ever get into."

Banc of America's Rubinson concurred.

"It doesn't thrill me," he said of Home Depot's impending move into Manhattan. "I'm perfectly happy with them opening stores in traditional suburban markets."

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Guest donaltopablo

Follow on article:

Home Depot confirms Manhattan plans

Plans to open store next summer in Flatiron District

By TONY WILBERT

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Home Depot confirmed plans Thursday to open its first store in Manhattan.

The new multi-level store will open next summer in Manhattan's Flatiron District, the company said. When the store opens, Home Depot will have stores in all five New York City boroughs. Atlanta-based Home Depot currently has 75 stores in the greater New York area.

The store will be located on the south side of 23rd Street between Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue and have an entrance on 22nd Street. The store will be 108,000 square feet with a street-level showroom and lower-level retail floor.

Home Depot also is negotiating for space at the new Bloomberg Tower at 731 Lexington Ave. between East 58th Street and East 59th Street.

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Guest donaltopablo

LOL! I agree. Actually, this store is relatively urban (for Home Depot anyway). I included a picture link above that you can see the front of the store. No big parking lot out front, LOL.

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But if some idiot CEO uses their cash to demolish a couple of blocks to build a sprawler with the only free parking lot in all of Manhattan, then  :puke:

Luckily this would not be economically feasible. It's nice when "urbanity" doesn't have to be dictated in a city because it's the ONLY economically feasible way to build.

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no big parking lots just alot of people on the subway with 2x4s and snowblowers!

LOL. It's nice to see no big parking lot out front. I hope Walmart builds a store similar to this if they do decide to build on the site of the now abandoned Tiger Stadium, which has been discussed the past few months. It would totally destroy the urban fabic of the neighborhood to surround the building with a large parking lot...which is what they want to do :angry:

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  • 11 months later...

What are they going to sell, huge bags of lawn fertilizer?  Home Depot is a suburban orientated store, they should stay in the suburbs.

They will still be able to sell tools and materials for remodeling condos and apartments. Those people in highrise condos may want to gut their places and redo them every once and a while. LOL. I doubt lawn fertilizer would be a very good seller though...unless someone has a lawn on the roof of their building.

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