RTG heads to Houston
Will start with four stores in early 2008
By Clint Engel -- Furniture Today, July 22, 2007
Seffner, Fla. — Rooms To Go CEO Jeff Seaman confirmed last week the retailer will enter the hotly contested Houston market early next year with its first four stores, and an aggressive plan to build more.
The Top 100 company, which already has Texas stores in Austin, San Antonio and the Dallas/Fort Worth markets, said it has started construction on two stores in the Baybrook and Willowbrook areas of Houston.
It expects to have these and two more in Sugar Land and The Woodlands shopping area open some time during the first quarter of 2008. Each store will be about 40,000 square feet and will combine RTG stores with attached Rooms To Go Kids & Teens units.
"We're pretty excited about it," Seaman said. "Texas is an area that Rooms To Go has room to expand in, and we've been thinking about Houston for some time."
RTG has real estate in various stages of development there, but had shied away from announcing its plans until it could nail down the critical warehouse piece.
Now, Seaman said, the company is finalizing plans for a 1.4 million-square-foot distribution center in west Houston at one of two sites under consideration. That's nearly the size of its 1.5 million-square-foot Lakeland, Fla., distribution center, which serves all its Florida stores.
The Houston facility should open about a year after the first stores. Until then, RTG will service the market through its Dallas distribution center.
How many more stores the company will add in greater Houston is uncertain, Seaman said, but he said it's "a lot more than four" and that the retailer already is negotiating on two more store sites.
He said he believes the market should be similar to Dallas, where RTG has six main stores, two clearance centers and four Kids & Teens units. Two more Dallas stores will open in the next two years.
Seaman would not disclose RTG's investment in Houston nor its projected sales there. Furniture/Today estimates the retailer's full build-out investment in Houston, including the distribution center, will exceed $100 million.
"It's a very big market and growing, but it's competitive," Seaman said, noting the likes of Top 100 rivals Finger Furniture, Star, Gallery Furniture and The RoomStore, as well as small but strong independents and Ashley Furniture HomeStores, which Finger recently began opening.
He said Houston reminds him of South Florida, which also is teeming with strong competitors, but is a market where Rooms To Go has carved out its share of sales.
"There are a lot of good competitors (in Houston), but there is a lot of business there — we hope," said Seaman.
RTG is No. 2 on Furniture/Today's Top 100 with estimated furniture bedding and accessory sales last year of $1.76 billion at 116 stores in Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Texas, Alabama and a franchise store in Puerto Rico.
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Rooms To Go plans four Houston stores next year
Jul 18, 2007
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