Menards expands into development
MILWAUKEE (AP) — Home improvement retailer Menards is creating need for its drills, saws and toilet seats in a way that’s unique to its industry.
The Eau Claire-based company is developing homes in residential subdivisions. Homes have already been built in Yorkville, Ill., and plans are in the works for Urbana, Ill., and Warsaw, Ind.
Menard Inc. is actively looking for new projects around its existing stores, said Jamie Radabaugh, director of sales and leasing for the company’s property division. The company gets deals on land when it plans stores and then sells the land to home developers.
This could be a first for the industry, said Scott Wright, a spokesman for the North American Retail Hardware Association, an Indianapolis-based trade group with about 13,000 members, most of them independent.
“I certainly haven’t heard of anyone doing anything like that,” Wright said about Menards’ subdivision business. “Especially in this economic climate.”
In 2001, Yorkville, on the fringe of the Chicago metropolitan area, annexed around 250 acres of farmland owned by Menards. Some of the land was set aside for a new store, which opened two years later, said Lynn Dubajic, executive director of the Yorkville Economic Development Corp.
Parcels were set aside for 164 single-family homes and 68 townhouse-style condos, Dubajic said. Menards put in utilities and other infrastructure for the single-family homes and has sold 129 lots to local homebuilder AMG Homes. Since 2005, AMG has built 110 homes, said Chad Gunderson, AMG co-owner and chief executive officer.
In buying the lots, AMG agreed to purchase virtually all of its building materials for the project from Menards, Gunderson said. The arrangement has worked well, he said.
“We look at the contract as mutually beneficial,” Gunderson said.
Radabaugh said Menards will have similar requirements with homebuilders buying lots in other Menards-developed subdivisions.
“It only makes sense to tie our company’s main business with the residential development projects,” he said.
The company built subdivisions years ago in Franklin and Eau Claire in Wisconsin. The subdivision business is increasing as its land acquisitions have grown. Menards now operates about 240 stores in 11 states.
Other sites in the works are in Warsaw, in north central Indiana, where a store will open early next year, city planner Jeremy Skinner said. Menards is seeking to develop 89 lots and is in discussions with a local homebuilder, he said.
In Urbana, in east central Illinois, Menards bought about 350 acres at an auction in 2005. Menards is still working on its plans for a store, additional retail space, single-family homes and townhouses. The company expects to have a total of 425 residential units there.
Nov 21, 2009 at 6:52 a.m.
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I'm a 65 year old bus driver. 2 months ago my home suffered a flood disaster. Most days since, I've been in Menard's buying everything under the sun. The toll must be in the thousands by now. I've enjoyed many of the sweet staff I see daily. Lastnight, Friday the 13th of November 2009, we were there once more. After a purchase of $310.00, I was not allowed out of the store before my MEA bag I use as a purse was searched. I was not nice about it, pointing out that I've been in there every day for 2 months and have never been treated in that humiliating and insulting way before. They weren't nice either, saying they (a particularly predatory little girl and a manager) work there every day and have never seen me in there before. They said they have a new policy to search every bag going in and then again on the way out. They haven't lost their best customer, I'm sure, but I was doing my part......operative word being WAS. I may take advantage of their very nice restroom in the future, but I won't spend money there again. The manager will be shown my pile of receipts Monday morning.
11~16~2009 Well, I took in the receipts. I was targeted the moment I entered. There was elbow nudging and mumbling along with sneering expressions. The manager was the same who waylaid me Friday night. He said I didn't have to bring them in and was reluctant to look at them. Finally he took a quick glance. He wasn't interested in anything I said, just talked over me repeating that he was just doing his job and anyone entering with an oversize bag will be searched. I said I know people with purses bigger than mine. He said, then they will have to leave them up front. He didn't care at all that he lost a pretty good customer. He actually said that's fine, when I said I couldn't shop under those circumstances. Seems like his job should have something to do with hanging onto loyal patrons. Until now it was my favorite store.
I contacted guest services. They seemed concerned at first and promised to look into the matter, but it's been over a week now, and it feels to me it has been accepted as is and dropped. No one should be made to feel too uncomfortable to enter a store unless they have done something wrong. It's really too bad. I've talked to a lot of people. No one I know would submit to that treatment.
May 5, 2008 at 8:26 p.m.
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I'd rather seen Menards building homes than Kennedy homes here in Janesville.
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