Brea, CA, Dec. 23--The Home Depot store on Imperial Highway in this Orange County city looks like your typical warehouse-style home improvement center from the outside. But inside, the store is a mix between a regular orange box and Home Depot's upscale Expo Design Center, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The aisles of stacked-high racks found at regular Home Depots are nonexistent in the front of this store. Instead, kitchen and bathroom, carpet and rugs and other showrooms--more than 46,000 square feet of them--dominate.
The front of the store is open and airy, the tall racking nowhere in view. The commodity and hardware items are found stacked in the back.
Home Depot has two of these upscale, hybrid stores, both in southern California. The Atlanta-based company opened its second such store in West Hills, in the San Fernando Valley, last month. It says the format is especially appealing to women.
But don't look for similar Home Depot stores to start popping up everywhere. The hybrid stores are specifically designed for their markets and do not represent new concepts, the company said Monday.
The hybrid stores, however, could offer a good alternative if Home Depot decides to scale back further its Expo Design Center chain, said Nathan Lewis, an analyst at Jackson Securities in Atlanta.
"The combination of the two [Expos and typical Home Depots] is a good idea," Lewis said. "But it's a wait-and-see kind of idea."
Early this year, Home Depot said it had decided to slow the growth of the Expo concept, designed to appeal to affluent homeowners doing extensive remodeling and decor work. The company has opened two new Expo Design Center locations this year, after opening 11 in 2002.
Other retailers also are de-emphasizing upscale offshoots.
Last summer, Sears said it will restructure its Great Indoors chain of home decorating and remodeling centers. Sears said it will close three locations and convert another to an outlet store.
Lowe's does not have an upscale concept and has no plans to create one, spokeswoman Chris Ahearn said.
Home Depot's hybrid design is similar to what shoppers will find when the company opens its first stores in Manhattan next summer. The 108,000-square-foot store being built on 23rd Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues will have more space dedicated to decor and showrooms than typical Home Depot locations, the company says.
The store in Brea, which opened in April 2002, has more than 50 kitchen and bathroom displays. It also sells several expensive outdoor grills typically found at Expo locations. The median household income in Brea, 30 miles east of Los Angeles, is $61,238, according to the city's official Web site.
"It's just a continuation of the neighborhood mix," said Home Depot spokesman Jerry Shields.
