Furniture in Las Vegas: Getting a Handle on the Future

Las Vegas: The Market

First there were surveys. Then seed money was gathered and a design team assembled. After months of negotiations, land was purchased and city council approval obtained. Now leases have been signed and original plans expanded. A ground breaking ceremony was held last spring.

There has been over two years of activity, press releases and promises. But today there is barely a crater dug at the fifty-seven acre site in downtown Las Vegas that is to be a national and international furniture complex. Here’s an up-to-date report of what is planned for the World Market Center and how well those plans are progressing.

The City

The buzz about the World Market Center began over two years ago when a study, conducted by the University of Nevada, showed overwhelming support by furniture retailers for a national furniture show in Las Vegas. Over eighty percent of retailers said that if a home furnishings market were held in Vegas, they would come to buy their inventory. In 2001, a second commissioned survey found that, while almost seventy percent of Top 200 Furniture Retailers did not attend the San Francisco market the previous year, more than 75% of them would attend a Las Vegas market.

Why is Las Vegas such a popular destination for trade show attendees? This host city has all the amenities. Need a hotel room? Fourteen of the world’s fifteen largest hotels are here, supplying 125,000 rooms at a range of rates and styles. Booking a flight? Hundreds of times a day, affordable flights bring over 40 million tourists a year from all over the world. After hours? Vegas offers legendary and countless entertainment, dining and shopping experiences. Climate? The city basks under an average 310 days of sunshine per year.

Getting around and getting set up in Vegas doesn’t pose the problems that are present in other cities due to its well-developed infrastructure. Over one thousand taxis and 325 limousines service the city twenty-four hours a day. An effective army of exhibition planners, local truckers, event planners, rental companies and caterers are already in place to service exhibitors. Nearby McCarran International Airport handles over two hundred million pounds of cargo each year.

The Plan

Developers Shawn Samson and Jack Kashani plan to build the World Market Center in two stages. The first stage involves thirty acres and will include three buildings, each with about a million square feet of permanent showroom space. A fourth building, a two-story one million square foot convention center, will complete phase one and house temporary exhibit space. Eventually, the complex will consist of six buildings and a parking garage, including 2.5 million square feet of hotel, office and residential space.

It is the permanent showroom space that makes the World Market Center different from any other trade show and convention in Las Vegas. Dave Palmer, General Manager of the World Market Center, says that this is the only permanent space for any kind of product in Vegas. “It’s the first of its kind, but not the last,” he predicts.

Palmer, whose deep roots in the furniture world include previous positions at R. C. Wiley and the San Francisco Mart, maintains that permanent showroom space makes sense for the furniture market. “It’s hard to show furniture in a temporary venue, to create that magazine environment and create vignettes with the necessary window treatments and lighting.” It is not only difficult, it is also expensive. The cost of setting up a temporary exhibit can rival that of maintaining a permanent showroom.

The Progress

If you could set your spy cam on that fifty-seven acre sight in the downtown area of Las Vegas today, you would see an enormous crater and a big pile of dirt. Actually, “you would see a pile of sand and rock. And lots of equipment and trailers,” corrects Palmer. Though a ceremonial ground breaking occurred last spring, construction on the project actually began in September.

If all goes as planned, by the time you read this, the project will have its own web cam where you can see the progress for yourself on the web at lasvegasmarket.com. And hopefully, by that time, you will be able to see more than trucks and dirt.

Though the construction site is in upheaval, the project seems to be on solid financial ground. Palmer reports that the World Market Center is fully funded by both national and international lenders. “There hasn’t been a shortage of people who want to invest in this project,” he reports.

Furthermore, the first building is already completely leased, with fully executed five-year leases from many big names in the furniture world. Klausner, Broyhill, Lane and Vaughan Furniture have all signed on for permanent showrooms at Vegas. The second one-million square foot building has people knocking on its proposed door. Dave Palmer reports that almost two hundred companies are interested in signing on once leasing begins.

The Target Dates

Here’s where things get tricky. In the Spring of 2001, when the project was proposed, the World Market Center was scheduled to open with its first market in early 2004. That deadline is here, but the site is currently just a crater and a pile of rocks. To explain the delay, Palmer points to the way progress halted after September 11 and to the size of the project. “It’s just behemoth.”

It looks as though the World Market Center may be hard pressed to meet its revised construction deadline as well. When asked how well construction was moving along and whether they would be able to keep their timetable, Dave Palmer responded gingerly. Expect an announcement about the scheduled opening any day.

Let’s Get Packing

Palmer believes that the World Market Center represents a bonanza to futon retailers, manufacturers and importers. Even though temporary space won’t be built until Phase II and ready until 2006, a 300,000 square foot Trade Pavilion tent will be set up outside the Phase I building and will house the temporary market.

Within this Pavilion, Palmer is very interested in accommodating a ‘show within a show’ for the futon category. “We have offered space to the Futon Association, and, once we have a definite floor plan layout, you can choose the size of space you want and create your own identity within that space.” He hopes that the Pavilion will be an incubator for smaller manufacturers.

But when you come to Vegas, remember to bring your checkbook. Palmer is candid about the fact that World Market Center space is going to be more expensive that what exhibitors are used to paying at a futon show. “Las Vegas may cost you more than what you’ve paid at previous shows, but what you pay per square foot is really a small part of the cost of actually exhibiting at the show. And here you’ll get much more traffic.”

Pass or Play?

Sure, the buzz is all about Vegas. Las Vegas is a hot destination today, inside the furniture world and well beyond. Fifty thousand residents are added to the city every year. Every hour of every day all year long, two acres are developed for commercial or residential use. The city is being developed so quickly that the Las Vegas phone book is published twice a year to keep up with the changes.

But will Vegas be able to sustain its popularity? Is it in danger of becoming over-crowded, over-developed and over-done? The World Market Place is committed to Las Vegas. The stakes are high.

But here’s the question everyone is asking: “are you going to be in Vegas?”

The next issue of Futon Life will feature a closer look at how the World Market Center could impact the futon category. Should we pass or play? E-mail me with your comments at lconverse@ertp.com.

FL

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