Floor & Decor enters Memphis market

75,000-square-foot retail center planned

Andy Ashby

Memphis Business Journal

Friday, April 19, 2013 5:00am CDT

COURTESY FLOOR & DECOR OUTLETS OF AMERICA INC.

Floor & Decor sells hard surface flooring and caters to both do-it-yourself customers and professional contractors.

Floor and Decor Outlets of America Inc., more commonly known as Floor & Decor, is entering the Memphis market in a big way, signing the largest retail real estate lease in the market this year.

The Atlanta-based hard surface flooring retailer plans to open a 75,134-square-foot store in the Perimeter Shopping Center by mid-July.

The company only plans one store initially in Memphis, so the location near the intersection of Interstates 40 and 240 was key, according to Floor & Decor president Bryant Scott.

“We like that location because it’s so regionally accessible,” Scott says.

Scott is a former president of The Home Depot Inc.’s EXPO Design Center business.

Founded in 2000, Floor & Decor currently operates 30 stores in 15 metropolitan markets throughout the Sunbelt. Stores typically range from 60,000 to 80,000 square feet, and each store stocks approximately 2,500 products.

The company plans to open eight stores this year and this is its first foray into Tennessee.

Memphis is close enough to Floor & Decor’s Atlanta headquarters and Savannah, Ga., distribution center so as to be easy to manage.

Floor & Decor sells hard surface flooring such as wood, tile and stone as well as some backsplashes and ceramic products.

“You won’t find any rugs in there, you won’t find any carpet,” Scott says.

The store, which could employ 50-55, targets do-it-yourself customers but also attracts professionals. Contractors can account for up to 40 percent of an average Floor & Decor store’s volume. This is partially because of the large selection and the free in-store designer services.

“The pro customer many, many times uses us as a showroom,” Scott says.

Floor & Decor keeps its prices low by buying product directly from producers, whether they are in Italy, China, Spain, India or Turkey.

“We buy the product right out of the quarry,” Scott says. “We buy the blocks, have them fabricated and the next time we see them, they’re in Savannah, Ga.”

Danny Buring, managing partner with the Shopping Center Group LLC, found the Memphis site for Floor & Decor. One reason he recommended it was because Floor & Decor can serve a 100-mile radius from that one location.

“I think in a 15-minute drive time from that location, you reach 60 percent of our entire MSA,” Buring says. “It’s hard to ignore being at the intersection of two interstates.”

More than 100,000 cars a day drive by that site.

“I’ve always liked Summer as a very, very solid blue-collar area,” Buring says. “It always has been and I think it always will be.”

Many hard goods retailers have taken a similar approach in the Memphis area. Northern Tool + Equipment and Garden Ridge each have only one store in Memphis and those are located near Floor & Decor.

Ed Woods handles retail leasing and sales at Belz Enterprises Inc. and worked with Buring on the other side of the lease at Perimeter Shopping Center, a 370,000-square-foot shopping center at 5230 Summer.

Atlanta-based Fulcrum Construction is the general contractor for the Floor & Decor build-out.

The location also has visibility from Interstate 240, which will help draw customers right out of the gate, according to Brad Wood, vice president of the real estate department with Floor & Decor.

“We look at accessibility and we look at interstate road systems and the intersection of 240 and 40 is as regional as you get in Memphis,” he says. “It allows you to pretty much pull from pretty much anywhere in Memphis and even outside of Memphis.”

 

Original article appeared here