Tag: Nebraska Furniture Mart

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Grandscape, Berkshire Hathaway’s giant mixed-use real estate development in The Colony, Texas, has broken ground on 1.5 million square feet of residential and office space that is billed as the lifestyle center for the development.

The lifestyle center will feature a luxury high-rise apartment tower that will also have retail and office space.

Located in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, Grandscape is being developed by Berkshire’s Nebraska Furniture Mart, and is home to its 1.86 million square foot store, which opened in 2015.

Berkshire is on a ten-year-plan to fill out the Grandscape property, with anchor retail and entertainment all on a Texas-sized scale.

In January, Galaxy Theatres agreed to build and operate an 85,000+ sf, 16-screen movie venue in the lifestyle center. The opening is scheduled for 2019.

Another anchor retailer that is already signed is Scheels All Sports, which is certainly familiar with the mega-sized nature of Grandscape.

Scheels currently operates the “World’s Largest All Sports Store,” which is located in Reno/Sparks, Nevada. No word yet whether the Grandscape store will eclipse it.

© 2017 David Mazor

Disclosure: David Mazor is a freelance writer focusing on Berkshire Hathaway. The author is long in Berkshire Hathaway, and this article is not a recommendation on whether to buy or sell the stock. The information contained in this article should not be construed as personalized or individualized investment advice. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

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The old saying is that everything’s bigger in Texas, and that sure applies to Berkshire Hathaway’s Grandscape commercial real estate development.

Grandscape, Berkshire giant mixed-use real estate development in The Colony, Texas, continues to fill out its tenants and will add an 85,000+ sf, 16-screen movie venue. The entertainment center is projected to open in the spring of 2019.

The movie complex will be owned and operated by Galaxy Theatres, LLC, a fully integrated movie theatre company. Galaxy Theatres is privately owned, and is in the top 10% ranked by size of its industry according to the National Theatre Association. It currently has theatres in California, Nevada, Texas and Washington.

Located in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, Grandscape is being developed by Berkshire’s Nebraska Furniture Mart, and is home to its 1.86 million square foot store, which opened in 2015.

When fully developed, Grandscape will cover 400+ acres with 3.9 million square feet of retail, entertainment, dining, hospitality, office and attractions.

© 2017 David Mazor

Disclosure: David Mazor is a freelance writer focusing on Berkshire Hathaway. The author is long in Berkshire Hathaway, and this article is not a recommendation on whether to buy or sell the stock. The information contained in this article should not be construed as personalized or individualized investment advice. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

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When Berkshire Hathaway opened its newest Nebraska Furniture Mart in The Colony in Dallas, Texas, the goal was to generate an additional $600 million a year for the furniture chain, which already has the highest per-store volume of any furniture  retailer in the United States.

Boasting a 1.9 million-square-foot facility, and featuring a 560,000-square-foot showroom, the new Dallas NFM dwarfs even the chains other megastores in Omaha, Nebraska; Kansas City, Kansas; and Des Moines, Iowa.

Now, it looks like Berkshire is meeting its goal.

The newest NFM generated roughly $500 million in revenue last year despite having only been open since March 2015.

According to Berkshire’s 2015 annual report, the new store had an immediate impact.

“Revenues of our home furnishings retailers in 2015 increased $572 million (24%) over 2014, driven by Nebraska Furniture Mart, which opened a new store in March of 2015, and from increases at R.C. Willey and Jordan’s.”

NFM’s Biggest Challenge Isn’t Amazon

Unlike many companies that see Amazon and the internet as the big hurdle these days for brick and mortar retailers, NFM says its biggest hurdle is making customers aware that it sells things besides furniture. After all, the company has furniture in its name. When customers get in the store the discover it has one of the most extensive selections of appliances of any retailer.

Flying in the face of the adage that the era of the mall is dead, with retail migrating more and more to the internet, NFM has crafted a powerful regional draw that takes up lots of actual physical space rather than just cyberspace.

The new Dallas store is part of a 400+ acres, 3.9 million square-feet mix of retail, entertainment, dining and attractions that is going by the name of Grandscape.

In addition to retail, the mixed-use real estate development, which will have a ten year build out, will include a hotel and amphitheater, office space, and ±300 multi-family units.

Also included in the development is a $45 million “boardwalk,” district that abuts an 11-acre manmade lake.

NFM is betting that 18 million visitors will come to Grandscape each year, with 8 million of those visitors hopefully shopping at Nebraska Furniture Mart.

© 2016 David Mazor

Disclosure: David Mazor is a freelance writer focusing on Berkshire Hathaway. The author is long in Berkshire Hathaway, and this article is not a recommendation on whether to buy or sell the stock. The information contained in this article should not be construed as personalized or individualized investment advice. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

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Berkshire Hathaway’s furniture retailing companies, which include Jordan’s, Nebraska Furniture Mart, R.C. Willey, and Star Furniture, delivered stellar results in 2015, with Berkshire’s revenues from retail rocketing up 64% to $564 million.

Much of the increase was due to the opening of the massive new Nebraska Furniture Mart in Dallas, Texas.

Proving that everything’s bigger in Texas, the mega-store boasts a 560,000-square-foot retail showroom and 58 acres of parking. The store’s massive loading area can load 120 cars simultaneously.

Before the new store opened, Berkshire was predicting that it would have annual revenues of $600 million, which is $200 million more than Nebraska Furniture Mart’s Kansas City store generates.

Shareholders Generate Spectacular Furniture Sales

Some of Berkshire’s millions in furniture sales come from the more than 40,000 shareholders that descend on Omaha every May for the conglomerate’s annual meeting.

In his 2015 annual letter to shareholders, Warren Buffett encouraged the shareholders to use their Berkshire Hathaway shareholder discount, which is good for the week of the annual meeting.

“Last year in the week encompassing the meeting, the store did a record $44,239,493 of business,” Buffett explained. “If you repeat that figure to a retailer, he is not going to believe you.”

Buffett went on to say that an average week for the store was roughly $9 million in sales, a figure that by itself would have any other furniture retailer in the stratosphere.

© 2016 David Mazor

Disclosure: David Mazor is a freelance writer focusing on Berkshire Hathaway. The author is long in Berkshire Hathaway, and this article is not a recommendation on whether to buy or sell the stock. The information contained in this article should not be construed as personalized or individualized investment advice. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

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People in Omaha, Kansas City and Dallas have been packing Nebraska Furniture Mart’s stores to buy everything from couches to washing machines, and now they can get their cellphone and tablets repaired while they shop.

Nebraska Furniture Mart (NFM) has brought Phone Surgeons, a nationwide network of mobile device technicians, into its stores to do in-store repairs on smartphones and tablets.

Phone Surgeons repairs smartphones and tablets in branded walk-in service centers (Emergency Rooms) and in store-inside-store kiosks (Urgent Cares) in partnerships with big box retailers. Additionally, the company has a fleet of certified Emergency Mobile Techs (E.M.T.’s) serves clients.

Founded in 2011 by wireless store owner Chris Jourdan, the company has more than 50 franchised and company-owned walk-in clinics and big-box in-store kiosks, along with a fleet of over 100 service-call techs.

NFM has set up mobile repair stations, “Urgent Cares,” in or near its wireless departments at its Omaha, Kansas City and new Dallas stores.

Phone Surgeons technicians can replace screens, batteries, charging ports, jacks, buttons and sensors; backup and data recovery; and repair water-damaged devices for all makes, models, operating systems and carriers.

Phone Surgeons boasts that it can do same-day repairs, with most performed in under an hour, and offers a free diagnosis and estimate.

© 2015 David Mazor

Disclosure: David Mazor is a freelance writer focusing on Berkshire Hathaway. The author is long in Berkshire Hathaway, and this article is not a recommendation on whether to buy or sell the stock. The information contained in this article should not be construed as personalized or individualized investment advice. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

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Move over Bassett, Charter Furniture, and Pottery Barn, when it comes to the new Nebraska Furniture Mart in Dallas, Texas, Warren Buffett has high hopes. “I believe the store will do over $1 billion,” Buffett recently told CNBC.

Officially, NFM has been projecting that the new Dallas store will have annual revenues of $600 million, which is $200 million more than its Kansas store generates.

If the $1 billion annual sales goal Buffett spoke of can be reached, it will be roughly half of all the home furnishing sales in the Dallas area.

In order to generate that type of business, NFM has built a massive store with a 560,000-square-foot retail showroom and 58 acres of parking. The store’s massive loading area can load 120 cars simultaneously.

Over 2,000 people are staffing the new store, and if the Kansas store is any indication, the average furniture sales associate will sell some $1.1 million of home furnishings a year.

Big Stores for a Big Market

According to Furniture Today Magazine, 41% of all U.S. households have plans to buy furniture and mattresses, and it looks like a huge number of them will be doing that at a Nebraska Furniture Mart.

While the Dallas store is expected to draw customers from as far as 300 mile away, the reach of NFM is nearly nationwide, delivering to 48 states (excluding Alaska and Hawaii).

© 2015 David Mazor

Disclosure: David Mazor is a freelance writer focusing on Berkshire Hathaway. The author is long in Berkshire Hathaway, and this article is not a recommendation on whether to buy or sell the stock. The information contained in this article should not be construed as personalized or individualized investment advice. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

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The Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting not only brings lots of people to Omaha, Nebraska, it also brings lots of business to Berkshire’s Nebraska Furniture Mart.

Shareholders receive a special discount during the week of the annual meeting, and Tuesday, April 28, 2015, saw sales at the furniture retailer’s Omaha store top $9 million for the day.

The previous one-day record was $8.2 million set in 2014.

Shareholders are Valuable Customers

Over 40,000 shareholders descend on Omaha the first weekend in May each year, and Nebraska Furniture Mart counts on $20 million in sales during the week of the Berkshire annual meeting. It has likely topped that this year, as Berkshire’s shareholders were coming into town having seen a 27.25% rise in the share price in 2014.

While the $9 million day is a record for the Omaha store, (and probably for any furniture retailer anywhere), it could be threatened by Nebraska Furniture Mart’s new 560,000-square-foot store in Dallas, Texas, which is already drawing huge crowds. Customers are driving from as far as 300 miles away to visit the massive store.

For more info on Nebraska Furniture Mart, read a MazorsEdge Special Report on the new Dallas store.

© 2015 David Mazor

Disclosure: David Mazor is a freelance writer focusing on Berkshire Hathaway. The author is long in Berkshire Hathaway, and this article is not a recommendation on whether to buy or sell the stock. The information contained in this article should not be construed as personalized or individualized investment advice. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.