MILL CREEK — When the new Lowe’s Home Improvement Warehouse located at Murphy’s Corner opens today, January 24, Snohomish County shoppers will notice a difference from the stores that the company currently operates in Lynnwood and Everett.
“This is the first store in the area that isn’t a conversion from Eagle Hardware,” said store manager Tim King. “This store is larger and carries about 25 percent more products in all areas.”
Lowe’s acquired the Eagle chain three years ago.
This store is 162,000 square feet spread across the back of a three-block long lot on the southeast corner of 132nd SE and the Bothell-Everett Highway between Mill Creek and Silver Lake.
The store also acts as a “bricks and mortar” extension of the company’s web site. An order may be placed via the Internet for any product. It can be delivered to the store and the customer will then be notified of its arrival with a telephone call.
While the store carries the standard hardware items, it is apparent that this particular store is marketing to more than just men looking for power tools.
The aisles are lined with more delicate home improvement items; window treatments, decorative hardware, lights, tubs and counter tops.
“We estimate that women drive 80 percent of the spending in home improvements,” said King. “We spend a lot of advertising dollars in sponsoring television programs like ‘Trading Spaces’ and on the cable channels like HGTV.”
Those programs and networks are aimed directly at a largely female audience.
While the store does work with local contractors and offers all the amenities of a local hardware store or lumberyard, it does so with an eye to the home consumer.
Lowe’s will offer services such as custom cutting of lumber and trim as well as supplying experts in all aspects of home improvement to answer questions.
That includes over a dozen employees who are certified by the company as experts in any one of a number of areas to answer questions about gardening, decorating and basics like lighting and plumbing. New employees are being trained to gain an expertise and expand the availability of assistance to customers.
There also will be weekly “how-to-do” classes offered at no charge to the public. The topics for each week will be posted at the entrance to the store.
For all the faucets, lights and two-by-fours that the store will sell, it is the massive gardening section that Lowe’s looks to for its highest traffic volume each year.
“April, May and June are our holiday season,” said King. “We have a 30,000 square foot garden area and three gardening experts on staff.”
The store in general and the garden area in particular are designed to fit the local market.
“We have a plant buyer at our regional headquarters who specializes in keeping us stocked with plants that will do well in the Northwest,” said King.
But sometimes it takes a phone call from the local managers to convince Lowe’s headquarters that Everett is not North Carolina.
“We had to tell corporate that we sell heaters for patio use, even in the summer around here. They were skeptical” said King. “We also let them know that we sell lots of treatments for moss and slugs.”
Lowe’s will become a major employer in the area, with over 100 new employees hired for an eventual work force of as many as 180 full- and part-time positions.
The impact of Lowe’s in the community extends beyond employment opportunities. According to Mill Creek city manager Bob Stowe, the anticipated boost to city revenues is significant.
Based on performance by similar stores, the city of Mill Creek is anticipating $300,000 per year in revenue from the city portion of the sales tax, a 23 percent boost to the current city income tax revenue of $1.3 million annually.
Lowe’s is headquartered in Wilkesboro, N.C., and has 25 outlets in Washington.
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