The big home-improvement chains
Home Depot
Founded: 1978
Headquarters: Atlanta
Total stores: 2,250
Local stores: 3
Revenue: $71.7 billion
Publicly traded
Lowe’s
Founded: 1946
Headquarters: Mooresville, N.C.
Total stores: 1,748
Local stores: 3
Revenue: $50.8 Billion
Publicly traded
Menards
Founded: 1960
Headquarters: Eau Claire, Wis.
Total stores: 272
Local stores: 2
Revenue: $7 billion (estimated)
Family-owned
Source: Dayton Daily News research
MIAMI TWP., Montgomery County —The 225,000-square-foot Menards “Mega Store” that opens next week near the Dayton Mall will intensify the already heated competition for consumer dollars among the major home-improvement retailers in the the Dayton area, an industry analyst said.
Menards officials announced Tuesday the new store at 8480 Springboro Pike at the southeast corner of State Route 741 will open Tuesday, Sept. 18.
The store will have a full-service lumber yard and large lawn-and-garden center, officials said. Customers will be able to use computers to help design their home-improvement projects. The store will also carry name-brand appliances, pet products and a line of convenience groceries.
“Homeowners, tenants, business owners and contractors will now have great access to a full line of building materials and supplies at the lowest prices in the area,” Menards spokesman Jeff Abbott said.
Eben Jose, home-improvement industry analyst for Los Angeles-based IBISWorld, Inc., an independent industry research company, said his firm has projected home improvement sales to grow at an annual rate of 3.3 percent over the next five years, to $187 billion in 2017, following a recession-impacted five-year period ending in 2012 in which sales were projected to drop by 2.8 percent per year. The more optimistic outlook is based on falling unemployment and on signs of renewal in the housing market, particularly in new construction, Jose said.
Menards’ decision to build larger “mega-stores” are part of the company’s strategy to compete aggressively against Home Depot and Lowe’s, Jose said.
Home Depot has captured about 41 percent of the national market, while Lowe’s has a nearly 33 percent market share, Jose said. Menards, with only a fraction of the stores of the two industry leaders, has captured nearly 5 percent of the national market while competing in only 14 states, mostly in the Midwest. In southwest and west-central Ohio, Menards operates stores in Tipp City in Miami County and in Fairfield Twp. in Butler County, as well as in Sidney, Celina and Lima.
The size of the average Menards has grown in recent years from 74,000 square feet to 162,000 square feet, Jose said. With a more varied selection and larger inventory in its larger stores, Menards can source products and raw materials at lower prices, boosting its ability to compete more effectively against the industry leaders, the industry analyst said.
Bill Hamilton, general manager of the Miami Twp. Menards, said Tuesday that his store will stock about 60,000 items, “everything from light bulbs to a complete house package” that include all of the materials needed to build a home from the ground up.
Despite multiple requests for employment numbers, neither Hamilton nor Menards spokesman John Leonauskas could provide provide an estimate or a range of the number of people the Miami Twp. store will employ. A typical Menards store, Leonauskas said, “will employ hundreds.” Leonauskas said he had no information as to whether Menards is considering any other store locations in the Dayton area.
The Miami Twp. Menards store will open at 6:30 a.m. Sept. 18. The hours going forward will be Monday through Saturday 5 a.m. to 10 p.m., and Sunday 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
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