HOME ON THE RANGE; NEBRASKA FURNITURE MART LANDS IN KANSAS WITH APPROXIMATELY 450,000 SQUARE FEET OF RETAIL ROOM.

HFN: The Weekly Newspaper for the Home Furnishing Network, August, 2003 by Buchanan, Lee

KANSAS CITY, Kan.-When Nebraska Furniture Mart opened the doors of its mammoth new store here, the Omaha retail icon brought a whole new world of home furnishings retailing to this understored market.

"They've never seen anything like this in Kansas City," said Bob Batt, Nebraska Furniture Mart's executive vice president, after guiding the 712,000-square-foot store through its grand opening that kicked off Aug. 15.

They haven't seen it anywhere else, either, outside of Omaha, where the Blumkin family has been "selling cheap and telling the truth" since the 1940s. It's a formula that rings up about $350 million in annual sales at the Omaha store, a number sure to be eclipsed in Kansas City.

This is total home retailing on an unprecedented...