Behind Vegas numbers
Most WMC visitors won't go to furniture markets
By Clint Engel -- Furniture Today, November 18, 2001
LAS VEGAS — The vast majority of the projected 1.7 million annual visitors to a completed World Market Center here will not be coming to furniture markets.
They will be visiting the 1 million-square-foot convention center, the project's Design Center, an antiques gallery and another retail segment of the project.
That's the word from developer Furniture Mart Enterprises, which earlier this month won tax rebates and closed on part of the land for the proposed $1 billion, 7.5 million-square-foot World Market Center.
Following the Las Vegas City Council's unanimous OK of the tax rebates, the developer faced another round of questions from some in the furniture industry and in High Point who are skeptical of the visitor count the project is expected to attract.
An editorial in the High Point Enterprise called attention to Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman's comments about how the WMC would attract 1 million visitors annually and create 35,000 new jobs.
"The trouble with the Las Vegas numbers is they're not realistic. They're ridiculous," the editorial said. "Even Las Vegas, famous for its huge convention and trade shows and one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world, cannot accommodate 500,000 more visitors for a four-day event."
But Jack Kashani and Shawn Samson, managing partners in the Las Vegas project, suggest the trouble is not in the big numbers but in the conclusions some are reaching about them. The WMC never has claimed it will attract a million or more people to its twice-yearly wholesale furniture markets, they said.
They are looking for more like 50,000 people per market. That's smaller than the 82,000 or so people said to attend a typical High Point market, but much larger than the San Francisco markets, which draw between 25,000 to 28,000 people per year, according to San Francisco Mart President Michael Gennet, "The majority of traffic (to the World Market Center) comes from the non-market activities," Samson said.
Based on information from the developer and an economic study released in May by the University of Nevada-Las Vegas' Center for Business and Economic Research, here's how attendance breaks down by the time the seven-year project is completed:
-
Some 600,000 people are expected to be using the 1 million-square-foot convention center — phase four of the project — for trade shows held every week in various industries. Kashani and Samson say the estimate is comparable with attendance at other convention centers in Las Vegas.
-
1 million would be divided among the Design Center, a 500,000-square-foot antiques gallery that will be the last phase of the center's World Trade Fair component, and the retail facilities of the World Pavilions component, which Samson compared to the Hickory Furniture Mart retail complex in Hickory, N.C.
-
That leaves 100,000 people at the semiannual furniture markets, the first of which is scheduled for January 2004.
The estimate of 50,000 visitors per market "is comparable with the proportionate attendance at High Point market for 5 million square feet of market showrooms," and includes larger international attendance, which the WMC believes it will be able to attract, the developer said.
The 400,000- to 800,000-square-foot Design Center will serve both as wholesale space during markets and as a year-round resource center where interior designers, architects and others can take clients.
The antiques gallery is expected to house hundreds of antiques dealers from the United States and around the world, Samson said. He wouldn't offer many details on the 1 million-square-foot, retail-oriented World Pavilions, noting it is the last phase of the project and "our focus continues to be on the wholesale furniture market."
Also, the exact retail/wholesale configuration of later phases of the project could change, he said.
Samson said the developer's numbers for non-market attendance are conservative. He noted, among other things, that a high-end retail outlet mall is slated for development across the street from the WMC and is expected to draw 8 million people a year.
"If we get only a fraction of those people coming across the street to go to the Design Center, that is far greater than the number we projected here," he said.
On the job front, Samson and Kashani say only about 1,500 full-time positions are directly related to the WMC complex. The rest of the 35,000-job estimate is based on a University of Nevada-Las Vegas economic model that projects the jobs likely to be created as a result of WMC activity.
| 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| World Market Tower, phase 1 | 100,000 | 100,000 | 100,000 | 100,000 | 100,000 |
| phase 2 | 87,500 | 150,000 | 150,000 | 150,000 | |
| phase 3 | 25,000 | 150,000 | 150,000 | ||
| World Market Convention Center | 600,000 | ||||
| World Pavilion (retail) | 500,000 | ||||
| World Trade Fair (antiques, carpets, rugs, lighting, home decor) | 234,000 | ||||
| Total new visitors | 100,000 | 187,500 | 275,000 | 400,000 | 1,734,000 |
| Source: World Market Center; University of Nevada-Las Vegas | |||||
-
Guide to 2010 U.S. furniture markets
Jan 4, 2010 -
Educational seminars set for market
Sep 7, 2009 -
Jewelry Center to be WMC site neighbor
Dec 10, 2006 -
Huge Shanghai complex targets trade, retail
Nov 5, 2006
Specialty retailer LoveSac introduces new store design
Belfort Furniture, Lawrance Furniture are NHFA Retailers of Year
Kincaid Furniture honors Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter for Habitat work
Singapore furniture show expecting increased turnout
Furniture, mattress sales boost Conn's sales 37.6% in recent quarter
Featured Company
-
Wright Labels
Bill and Tom Wright founded Wright of Thomasville in 1961 on the idea that printing was a creative medium and the belief that "a promise made is a promise kept." The Wright brothers focused their attention on providing exceptional printing for the... more
VIEW ALL GALLERIES
