When Home Depot’s first New York location opened to the public on Sept. 9, any long-time Big Orange customers who stopped by for a visit could be excused if they looked a bit confused wandering the aisles of the 105,000-square foot facility in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan.
According to a Reuters report, the Manhattan store offers some very unique services customers might not expect to find in a home center — including a doorman to help shoppers hail cabs and urban-oriented home improvement clinics with names like “Make 500 square feet feel like 5,000 square feet” and “How to Create a Garden on a Fire Escape.”
“Manhattan is unique, and it has a tremendous customer base opportunity,” Robert Nardelli, Home Depot’s chairman, CEO and president, said at the store’s grand opening. “We’re confident that with success here, it will give us the opportunity to continue to expand our business.”
The store will focus on the upscale, fashionable home items and decor that city dwellers demand, the company said. “We’ve got nails. We’ve got electrical sockets. But we’ve also got $7,000 rugs,” said Tom Taylor, the company’s Eastern division president.