Furniture mart uses glitz to attract guests

The sleek surfaces and bright natural lighting in the foyer of the World Market Center's newest building in downtown Las Vegas would meet the grandiosity standard of any resort on the Strip.

It will undoubtedly make a great first impression next week when thousands of furniture dealers from around the world pour into the 16-story, $550 million structure for the center's inaugural market event.

Whether the imposing exterior facade and fantastic views of Las Vegas from the upper floors will be enough to overshadow the woes of the nation's battered furniture industry remains to be seen.

The building -- third in a $3.3 billion, eight-building effort to shift the epicenter of America's furniture and furnishings business west to Las Vegas -- will open Monday to an industry facing tough times.

Furniture makers who lease showroom space and retailers who browse and make orders during semiannual market events are members of an industry bearing the brunt of the real estate and credit market crashes. Last year, the home furnishings and furniture segment accounted for 27 percent of 4,600 retail store closings nationwide, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers.

That leaves the folks behind World Market Center, a group that's already spent $1.1 billion on the three distinctive structures and a massive parking garage, working harder than ever to recruit tenants to lease space and attract buyers to market events.

World Market Center President and CEO Bob Maricich said these are the toughest times for furniture and furnishings companies since he entered the industry in 1973.

"It is almost a joke when you read we are not in a recession," Maricich said.

Still, he's upbeat about prospects for World Market Center.

Since taking the top job at World Market Center in January, Maricich, former president and CEO of Century Furniture Industries, has managed to attract enough new tenants to generate an 85 percent occupancy rate for the upcoming summer market, which runs Monday through Friday.

That's despite a 40 percent increase in the amount of available space on the World Market Center campus in the form of Building C's 2.1 million square feet.

"There are projects with 10 percent of that 2 million square feet that have had difficulty leasing in Las Vegas," said World Market Center managing partner Shawn Samson. "That is a sign of the upward mobility of this project."

Maricich says the upcoming market will feature 300 new exhibitors, out of a total of about 1,500.

There's also a push to attract more segments of the industry such as flooring, kitchen and bath and gifts.

Diversification could make the semiannual market events more appealing and help World Market Center develop alternate events throughout the year.

Maricich is also overseeing the expansion of the Las Vegas Design Center, a concept that involves setting aside several floors in the buildings for showrooms aimed at interior designers.

The idea is to provide buyers more incentive to attend the markets and raise World Market Center's profile in the industry.

In just three years, World Market Center has grown from a concept to become the second-largest furniture trading venue in the country. High Point Market, founded more than 100 years ago in High Point, N.C., is the largest.

World Market Center's development at the peak of the housing boom generated buzz throughout the industry and gave weight to claims by the developers it would overtake High Point as the industry's top marketplace.

But with the housing crash, attendance appears to have slackened at recent market events, although the center does not reveal attendance figures.

High Point officials have also stepped up their efforts to hold onto customers.

They admit a century of dominance contributed to a sense of complacency.

"Any competition is good for any type of organization," said Brian Casey, president of High Point Market.

Since Casey took over High Point in 2006, the market has upgraded transportation among its 12 million square feet of exhibitions and worked to re-establish its position as a year-round source for information on industry trends.

High Point upgrades combined with the economic downturn for the industry are a challenge for Las Vegas, said Nith Sisombath, a former World Market Center operations manager who is now a trade show consultant.

"It is probably tougher to drive the attendance numbers they originally had," said Sisombath. "I think the (downturn) is hitting them a lot harder than they expected."

Recently, World Market officials said they will defer a decision to set a construction start date for Building D until the end of the year.

But with $1.1 billion in construction already complete, the skyline of downtown Las Vegas irrevocably changed and investors who say they remain committed to completing their vision, Maricich says the World Market Center lived up to the promise city leaders envisioned when they approved millions of dollars in tax incentives for a project pitched as a catalyst for downtown redevelopment.

"As far as I know we have exceeded all those initial expectations," he said.

Contact reporter Benjamin Spillman at bspillman@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3861.