84 Lumber plans 150 new format stores by 2003

Home Channel News, Jan 10, 2000

EIGHTY-FOUR, PA. -- After testing more than a dozen new format 84 stores in 1999, 84 Lumber said it likes what it sees.

The 391-unit dealer last month announced an ambitious plan to open 150 new 84 stores during the next three years. In 2000, 84 Lumber plans to open 50 stores in 12 Midwestern and Southern states. After that, the dealer said it expects to add another 50 stores in both 2001 and 2002.

All new stores will be built in the 84 format, which consists of a consumer-friendly 10,000-square-foot hardware store and special order showroom inside the traditional 84 Lumber warehouse.

Approximately 40 of next year's 50 new stores are already under construction and due to open by spring or summer, 84 said in a prepared statement. Four of those stores are slated for Arkansas, marking its debut in that state. The other openings will occur in states where the dealer already has a presence.

84 plans to open seven units in Missouri, five in North Carolina, four each in Georgia and Tennessee, three in Michigan, two each in Kentucky and South Carolina and at least one each in Ohio, Maryland, Florida and Mississippi.

The rapid three-year pace would push 84 Lumber well over the 500 store mark and fill in the dealer's geographically widespread, but somewhat thin, national presence. While there are 30 states with at least one 84 yard, the company's strongest markets are in parts of the Northeast, Southcentral states and the Ohio Valley.

84's presence in other regions vary from light -- such as four yards in Texas and one yard in both Arizona and Colorado -- to nonexistent -- no yards in the Pacific Northwest, the northern Plains and other states like Nevada and Minnesota.

"We want to become more of a national company," said Bill Myrick, 84 Lumber's chief operating officer in an interview with NHCN earlier this year. "Right now the majority of our stores are east of Mississippi." Myrick said 84 has identified some 8,000 markets that could support an 84 store.

In addition, the company will continue to upgrade many of its existing stores to the 84 format, which offers 12,000 skus, or nearly triple the amount found at a traditional 84 Lumber store, and much deeper assortments in plumbing, electrical, hardware and paint and sundries categories.

"The one-stop shop format of the new 84 stores has been very well-received," said Maggie Hardy Magerko, 84 Lumber's president. "We are excited about the growth our company is experiencing."

In 1998, the dealer recorded sales of $1.65 million and ranked sixth among the country's largest home improvement retailers. In the December announcement, 84 said its 1999 sales are on pace to surpass the previous year's figure but did not provide specifics.