Vegas sets first market
January 2005 show would overlap San Fran by one day
By Clint Engel -- Furniture Today, March 24, 2003
Las Vegas — The World Market Center and its growing list of tenants have scheduled their first furniture market for January 2005 — a Tuesday-through-Friday run that will overlap the San Francisco market by one day.
The developers of the planned $1 billion, 7.5 million-square-foot market complex here announced the dates during an event tied to its groundbreaking last Friday, which drew some 200 industry leaders, city officials and others.
Starting in 2005, the semiannual markets will be held every January and July in a typical regional market cycle, officials said. The market's advisory board of tenants set the dates during the week so retailers could be in their stores on weekends, said Don Mecke, Standard Furniture vice president of sales and marketing and an advisory board member.
San Francisco markets open on Fridays.
"San Francisco was not on the agenda today," Mecke said after the advisory board meeting. "We wanted to set our dates independent of everything else."
WMC General Manager Dave Palmer said the market has been polling members of the industry for the past 18 months asking their preferences for dates.
"Tenants and retailers agreed that the January/July period is ideal," he said.
Some new tenants have said the WMC would complement their existing market coverage, including San Francisco.
But Michael Gennet, president of the San Francisco Mart, said the overlapping dates would cause problems.
"I think it's a disservice to both the buyers and particularly the tenants who will maintain showrooms at both locations," Gennet said. "It forces the tenants to make duplicate floor samples and in some cases split their sales staffs to cover both markets."
The Las Vegas dates also would interfere with San Francisco setup time and sales meetings, he said.
Shawn Samson, World Market Center developer and co-managing partner, said discussions with the majority of the Las Vegas market's tenants indicated their "preference would be to establish a dominant market in the West."
Construction on the first-phase, 1.3 million-square-foot, 10-level building near downtown Las Vegas is scheduled to start in August and be completed by late 2004.
While WMC developers hit some snags along the way, the timetable for first-phase development has remained relatively intact. The project also has garnered the industry support needed to push forward with plans for second and third market buildings.
Also planned for the first phase is a 300,000-square-foot Trade Pavilion for temporary space, using tents similar to those used at High Point's Showplace before that building was constructed.
Other trade shows and events would be held between markets in the Pavilion, which will be on the WMC site. Eventually the developers plan to build a convention center that will become home to the temporary markets.
To date, the WMC or individual companies have released the names of 211 signed tenants out of about 250 companies it said will lease permanent space in the first phase. Heavy hitters recently announced include Serta, Simmons, King Koil, Leggett & Platt's Fashion Bed Group/West Coast Steel Division, Coaster, Emerald Home Furnishings, Powell, Lane, Broyhill, Flexsteel and Klaussner.
While WMC officials had been toying with the idea of developing the second and third showroom buildings concurrently, for now they are saying the second 1.3 million-square-foot building will begin in summer 2004 — about a year after construction starts on the first building — and the third building would be under way a year after that.
Meanwhile, they said, demand has been overwhelming. WMC is taking reservations for both the second and third buildings and has commissioned its architect to start the design process.
The decision build in stages is related to the timing of expiring leases in other market facilities for major groups of proposed tenants, Samson said, but he added that the situation may change, and the WMC could move faster if tenants say they want an earlier delivery date.
Among the expected guests at the groundbreaking were Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman and two representatives from the U.S. Department of Commerce — James Leonard III, deputy assistant secretary of commerce for textiles, apparel and consumer goods, and Larry Brill, director of the market expansion division for the department's Office of Textiles and Apparel.
Phase one of the World Market Center is the largest non-gaming-related commercial construction project in Las Vegas, according to the developers. The first three buildings in the project are projected to total 4 million square feet, with about 3.5 million square feet of space that can be leased.
Jack Kashani, WMC developer and co-managing partner, called it "fitting" that the groundbreaking was occurring on the first official day of spring, saying, "This season signals the beginning of all things new, and so does this project. Today we have planted a very important seed for the future growth of the home furnishings industry."
