Rooms To Go is adding room to grow in the Houston area with new distribution and retail locations to support its expanding customer base in the region.
The furniture retailer is preparing to move this summer into a 498,000-square-foot distribution center in Brookshire, Texas, near Katy and adding a nearly 50,000-square-foot retail showroom in Pearland, said Peter Weitzner, vice president at Rooms To Go, in an interview with CoStar News.
“We see Houston as a growth market because it’s always expanding. It’s a perfect market for Rooms To Go and we think our customers really like us there,” Weitzner said.
The expansion comes as more furniture retailers and home improvement stores are adding both industrial and retail space to accommodate Houston’s rooftop growth. Ikea, Conns HomePlus and American Furniture Warehouse have all added substantial space in recent years, in addition to major distribution centers from Home Depot in northwest Houston, Lowe’s in New Caney and Floor and Decor in Chambers County.
Rooms To Go’s new 49,000-square-foot showroom in Pearland off State Highway 288 is expected to feature products from the company's patio, kids and regular divisions, according to the company.
The new distribution center is located nearby its existing 1.5 million-square-foot distribution center and showroom at 20701 Miller Road in Brookshire. Phelan Development is building the 498,000-square-foot center at 1006 Jordan Ranch Blvd. on behalf of the company, according to CoStar. Phelan Development declined to comment.
The new facility will be used for additional storage space for fulfilling online orders in addition to orders from brick-and-mortar stores, Weitzner said. Rooms To Go operates showrooms throughout the region but the products are delivered directly to customers from its distribution centers, he added.
About 12 miles away, Rooms To Go also operates a roughly 300,000-square-foot facility at 2244 North Mason Road, where it has leased space for about four years, said Weitzner. The company expects to relocate these operations to its new Jordan Ranch Boulevard location but it may decide to keep both facilities and has not made a final decision, he said.
Rooms To Go is expanding it distribution footprint at a time of huge growth for the industrial market in Brookshire, just west of Houston. The distribution facility is located south of Interstate 10 in what is technically within the Sugar Land industrial market, according to CoStar data. The submarket has about 3 million square feet of new industrial space under construction, according to CoStar data, including Clay Development & Construction’s nearly 740,000-square-foot speculative building called The Uplands Twinwood DC 1, which is expected to be completed in the third quarter.
The area has seen substantial spillover in activity from the adjacent northwest outliers industrial market tracked by CoStar. In the northwest outliers industrial market, contractors completed construction on 4.6 million square feet of space over the past 12 months. That includes recent speculative space delivering in Stream Realty’s 300-acre industrial park called Empire West, as well as large build-to-suit projects like Clay Development & Construction's 1.3 million-square-foot facility for Medline and Amazon's 806,000-square-foot building at 22525 Clay Road by developer Duke Realty. Goya Foods also is expanding its manufacturing facility in Brookshire by about 400,000 square feet, a Goya spokeswoman previously told CoStar news.
For the Record
JLL's Jarret Venghaus, Mark Nicholas and Jeff Venghaus represented the landlord, Phelan Development, in the distribution space deal for Rooms To Go at 1006 Jordan Ranch. Bob Berry of Savills represented Rooms To Go.