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Nebraska Furniture Mart breaks ground on multimillion-dollar complex: New jobs on the way for North Texas as retailer makes third and largest move in the nation
By Marthe Stinton, mstinton@starlocalnews.com
Get ready: more than 4,000 construction jobs and 2,000 retail positions are coming to North Texas within the next two years. Nebraska Furniture Mart celebrated its groundbreaking on Tuesday in The Colony as several city and county officials welcomed the giant retail furniture store.
The Colony has been in discussion with the Omaha-based retail giant for the past few years and was on hand to welcome Nebraska Furniture Mart officials to the state.
The 1.86 million-square foot development will be part of the largest retail and entertainment destination of its kind in North America and will be situated at State Highway 121 and Plano Parkway in The Colony.
The 90-acre plot will be home to other retailers and will continue the founder Rose Blumkin's motto to "sell cheap and tell the truth." Blumkin founded her first store on a $500 loan in the basement of her husbands' pawn shop.
The Colony City Manager Troy Powell, who Mayor Joe McCourry said has been a vital element to the development, said when the company first approached the city they asked for a partnership.
"They want a marriage-they don't want a one-night stand," he said. "These people will always be here.
One year after this store is open; it will have [generated] $5.4 million [for the city] that is cold, hard cash we can spend on police, fire and city operations. Any city who wouldn't take a deal like that is nuts. That's a great deal for the city and the county."
That partnership was created with a Tax Increment Financing zone, which means the city and county will retain control.
"Every cent that goes into this project comes back into this TIF that the city and county will control for the next 30 years," Powell said. "You know what that means? The city and county together will always have a resource of funds that comes directly from this site to redevelop the community [as it gets older]. That's how economic development should be done."
The Texas store will be the company's third store in the nation, as well as its largest.Nebraska Furniture Mart of Texas will include a 560,000-square-foot state of the art retail showroom and a 1.3 million square-foot distribution center, making this the company's largest store, according to a press release.
"We are so happy to have Nebraska Furniture Mart here - this will be the entertainment and destination Mecca in North Texas," McCourry said. "We're looking at retail and other business, but this is going to also [help] home sales as property values will increase."
Turner Construction Co. is the general contractor for the project and brought trucks to mark the outline of the $1.5 billion, 433-acre, mixed use development.
"There are going to be more than 4,000 construction jobs that are created just to get this project going," McCourry said. "We're looking at retail and other business, but this is going to also [help] home sales as property values will increase."
Nebraska Furniture Mart assembled multiple tracts of land for its mixed-use development. The entire development is anticipated to receive 14-to-16 million visitors annually, the company said.
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