UPDATE: Nebraska Furniture Mart may be headed to Dallas suburb

Huge showroom planned for The Colony, Texas

Clint Engel -- Furniture Today, November 9, 2011

DALLAS — Nebraska Furniture Mart could be coming to Dallas with its largest store to date anchoring a major commercial development.

NFM Executive Vice President Bob Batt confirmed today that the Omaha, Neb.-based retailer, part of Berkshire Hathaway's furniture division, has tentative plans to build a 1.8 million-square-foot complex with a 546,000-square-foot showroom in The Colony, Texas, a north Dallas suburb.

Batt said the store would be part of a $1.5 billion project the retailer would develop on 433 acres that would also include other retailers, hotels, a convention center, "amusements" and other businesses, "making it a big destination."

NFM estimated that the first phase of the development could draw 8 million customers a year and that its store alone could do $600 million to $800 million in annual sales.

"It's not a done deal yet, but it's on the right track," Batt said. Asked if the store would be called Nebraska Furniture Mart, Batt indicated that's undecided, noting, "We're going to do research to make sure we have the proper name for the marketplace.

"We're looking to break the mold when it comes to developments," he said, adding that in his 49 years at NFM, "this is far and away the biggest thing ever."

If all goes well, construction would start this spring and the store - NFM's largest - would open some time in 2015.

A local report in The Colony Courier-Leader said several steps remain before the project comes to fruition, including the formation of a tax increment reinvestment zone by the Colony city council.