Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Nailing The Hardware Market Eagle Breaks Ground; New Ziggy’s Is Open; Home Depot On Deck

Local, regional and national chains are filling up the competitive local hardware market.

Eagle Hardware and Garden, which first started two stores in Spokane, has broken ground at the corner of Appleway and Julia.

Two weeks ago, Ziegler Building Center, the Spokane company that operates under the store name Ziggy’s, opened a store in Post Falls.

And Home Depot, the Atlanta-based 552-store hardware chain, is considering opening a Coeur d’Alene store by 1999.

They’re all trying to nail the Kootenai County do-it-yourselfer market.

Eagle plans to open its 181,000-square-foot hardware, lumber and garden center in November. The $8 million project follows the 30-store chain’s progression into the Spokane market: opening one store in Spokane in 1990 and another in the Valley in 1994. The Coeur d’Alene store will be the first store in Idaho.

“We took a look at Coeur d’Alene’s growing market, and it was absent of any major home improvement store,” said president Rich Takata.

Meanwhile, Ziggy’s president Reid Ziegler scoffed at the big chains moving into their turf. “We’re one step ahead,” he said, referring to the opening of the Post Falls store, the fifth in the Spokane/Coeur d’Alene region.

In fact, the very nature of hardware business is dependent on economic growth.

“It’s no secret to us that it’s been a good market,” he said. “It’s grown so much that it’s attractive to the Eagles and the Home Depots.”

Ernst Home Center’s closing in both Spokane and Coeur d’Alene gave room for more stores to move into the market.

Home Depot will open a 105,700-square-foot store in the Spokane Valley this November and plans to open another in North Spokane next summer.

A third store in Coeur d’Alene will be “part of our growth plan for the entire region,” said company spokesperson Amy Friend.

The company plans to expand to more than 1,100 stores in the United States and Canada by the year 2000.

Local hardware owners show no fear as the bigger chains move in.

“You don’t need to have 100 different hammers to offer people,” said Tom Richards, general manager of Atlas Building Center, referring to Eagle’s television ads touting greater selection. With more than 40 in stock at his store, he said, “We’ve got enough hammers to meet people’s needs.”

Richards and his employees have been shopping Eagle’s Spokane stores to prepare for the competition. Atlas won’t significantly lower prices or add voluminous rows of tool belts, he said. At most, ‘it’s prompting us to tighten up what we do well here,” he said.

“We’ve always tried to position ourselves as a do-it-yourself store with personalized, knowledgeable service. We’ll continue to work our hardest to do that.”

Ziegler agrees.

In true, do-it-yourselfer nature, Ziegler said, “I’m surprised they don’t get off their butts and build stuff sooner.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo; Map of Eagle Hardware site