WA Wholesaler Commits to World Market Center

(For more retail coverage, click GlobeSt.com/RETAIL.)

LAS VEGAS-World Market Center continues to fill its buildings faster than they can be built. Three months prior to completion, its 1.6-million-sf second building is now fully preleased and its 2.1-million-sf third building, slated to break ground in September, is 20% preleased, leasing director Babs Blair tells GlobeSt.com.

World Market Center is a new integrated home and hospitality contract furnishings showroom and convention complex in Las Vegas. When fully built, it will have 12 million sf in eight buildings, making it the largest trade show complex in the world. The total cost of the development is expected to exceed $3 billion.

The $345-million second building, which is slated for completion in November, was filled out earlier this month with a 16,800-sf lease by Tacoma, WA-based Emerald Home Furnishings, a full-line wholesale importer and distributor of home furnishings and decorative accessories that generates annual sales of about $50 million. The company signed a five-year lease for space on the 13th floor of the 16-story building. Its triple-net lease rate starts out in the mid $20s per sf.

Emerald Home Furnishings president David Beckmann tells GlobeSt.com the company has for the past three years set up a 20,000-sf temporary showroom at the annual Las Vegas Furniture Show at a cost of $10 per sf. Despite the increased cost, Beckmann believes he will save money in the long run.

“The amount of work involved in putting a temporary showroom of our size is tremendous; you have to do everything in two days and take it down in one day,” Beckmann says. “After doing three temporary showrooms we just thought we’d be better off in permanent space; the money we spend in moving product around will be a lot less, and I think traffic will be up.”

Building B is on track for completion in November, which would allow tenants to set up shop before the annual show in January. The entire 12-million-sf campus is slated for completion in 2013. It will showcase furniture, decorative accessories, lighting, area rugs, home textile and related segments, as well as a Design Center open year-round to the trade.