Retail Competition Heating Up

Consumers seeking bargains on home-improvement, electronic or office products in coming years should have good luck in Spokane.

Competition among Spokane retailers of those products soon will increase dramatically, predicted John Morrow, broker and co-founder of Pinnacle Realty.

“I won’t call it a bloodbath,” Morrow said, during the Real Estate Market Forum on Wednesday at the Spokane Ag Trade Center. But, it’ll be “intense.”

The competition in office products and electronics, Morrow said, is the byproduct of the bankruptcy of Smith’s Home Furnishings and the subsequent arrival of other stores hoping to fill that gap in the market.

Office Depot opened a second Spokane store on North Division and is planning to open another in the Spokane Valley in May, Morrow said. Office Depot competitors, Cleveland-based Office Max and Staples, based in Framingham, Mass., also are “flirting around town,” he said.

Canada’s largest electronics dealer, Future Shop, plans two locations, one in the old Smith’s location in Northpointe Plaza on the North Side and one in the Spokane Valley. Those stores will compete with Magnolia Hi-Fi, which opened its first Spokane store in late 1994.

Two other huge electronics dealers said to be looking at the market, Morrow said, are Brisbane, Calif.based The Good Guys and Richmond, Va.-based Circuit City.

Free and clear after a zoning change, Home Depot, a huge warehouse seller of home improvement products, plans a site at Sprague and Fancher in the Spokane Valley. Morrow feels that’ll have the biggest impact on Ernst’s Valley store.

General-purpose retailers also are expanding here.

Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest retailer, has been sniffing around Spokane County for months. In November, the retailer submitted a building plan for a site in the Spokane Valley and representatives have met with city officials about a North Side site, possibly on Newport Highway.

Fred Meyer, which plans to build a 166,000 square foot superstore on U.S. Highway 95 in Coeur d’Alene, also will build a store at Hastings and U.S. Highway 395 in the Wandermere area. That store is due to open in 1998.

The appearance of huge discount stores could force regional malls to take a different approach, Morrow said. He predicted that NorthTown Mall will focus increasingly on promoting shopping as entertainment, instead of trying to beat the discount stores’ prices.

“The regional mall is kind of becoming the town plaza. There’s a lot of entertainment they book to get people to come shop,” Morrow said. “You don’t go to Office Depot to get entertained.”

, DataTimes