Home Depot to Open Second Manhattan Store

NEW YORK CITY- Just weeks after saying its will open its first Manhattan store, the Home Depot now announces plans for a second one. This time the retailer will take 83,000 sf at 984 Third Ave. in Midtown, the old Alexander’s site. Two weeks ago, the company announced plans to open a 108,000-sf store on 23rd Street near Fifth Avenue in the Flatiron District. Both stores are expected to open next summer and bring between 500 to 600 jobs to the area.

The store will have space on one lower level and will devote a substantial amount of space to showrooms on a separate mezzanine level.

“Home Depot has been evaluating locations throughout Manhattan for several years,” notes Tom Taylor, president of Home Depot’s Eastern Division. “This second store in Manhattan will enable Home Depot to serve tens of thousands of new customers in Midtown and Upper East Side neighborhoods. This store and the Flatiron store will meet a huge untapped demand for home improvement products and services in Manhattan.”

By adding a home-store element to an area known for its apparel retailers, “this will change the whole complexion of Third Avenue,” says Faith Hope-Consolo, vice chairman, Garrick-Aug Worldwide Ltd. She believes the Home Depot will also “knock the socks off” of Gracious Home, a neighborhood institution. She estimated the cost to be $75 per sf.

Like the Flatiron District store, the Midtown Home Depot will be a pedestrian-oriented, multiple-level “urban neighborhood” store, with a product assortment geared specifically for the Manhattan neighborhoods it will serve.

The Home Depot opened its first New York City store in Ozone Park, Queens in 1994. The retailer has opened five additional stores in Queens, four in Brooklyn and two each in the Bronx and Staten Island, in addition to an Expo Design Center in Jackson Heights, Queens. Home Depot employs more than 18,000 people in the New York area and currently has 75 stores in the greater New York market. Founded in 1978, the Home Depot is the world’s largest home improvement specialty retailer and the second largest retailer in the US, with fiscal 2002 sales of $58.2 billion.