World Market Center growing in Vegas
What appears to be the future of the home furnishings industry continues to grow in downtown Las Vegas. Its sheer size is impressive.
The latest installment, creatively dubbed Building B, is a 16-story, $345 million, 1.6 million square foot, 300 showroom, 378 feet tall structure. I'm told it’s the largest and tallest building in downtown Las Vegas, and the tallest furniture mart building in the U.S.
But that record won’t last long. Building C is already several stories off the ground. It weighs in at 2.1 million square feet, 16 stories and $540 million. Its scheduled completion date is July 2008.
After that comes installment four of eight. And so on . . . . I think these guys are on to something.
All in all, 12 million square feet of home furnishing heaven is scheduled for completion by 2013 or sooner. The World Market Center will become the world’s largest trade show complex. The Entertainment Capital of the World may soon be equally known as the world’s capital of home furnishings. Calling all couch potatoes!
At the Winter Las Vegas Market, Jan. 29 to Feb. 2, there was a 60 percent increase in new buyers and more than 50 percent increase in international visitors.
If you haven’t got the picture yet, this is no small undertaking and it appears to be taking the home furnishings industry for a truly out-of-this-world, or at least over-the-top Las Vegas style, ride.
Las Vegas Market is billed as the fastest growing trade fair in the world. The most recent market was host to more than 1,500 companies representing all categories of home furnishings, including furniture, decorative accessories, lighting, area rugs, textiles, tabletop, gift and others.
Las Vegas seems to be the perfect home, with hundreds of thousands of hotel rooms and the infrastructure to service them, for the world’s largest trade fair.
I recently toured the WMC campus and the feeling was one of excitement and anticipation. I was equally jazzed to see the Vegas Grand Prix barricades going up around the complex. But that’s a topic for another blog.
Here’s the view above the lobby of Building B. That’s 15 stories of escalators stacked on top of each other. Pretty cool!
And here’s one of the truly amazing views from the top of the building, from One Six, a lounge.
