Page 33 - Flathead Beacon // 11.27.13

32 | NOVEMBER 27, 2013
BUSINESS MONTHLY
FLATHEADBEACON.COM

Sportsman

Takes Aim

at Major

Expansion

Kalispell store to add 30,000 square

feet; Whiteish store gets total facelift

By MOLLY PRIDDY of the Beacon

When Sportsman and Ski Haus built its massive,
55,000-square-foot store in Kalispell in 2007, its man-
agement wondered if perhaps they’d overdone it a bit.

Fifty-thousand square feet is a lot of space to ill, presi-
dent David Harvey thought, and the other Sportsman lo-
cation in Whiteish is already pretty popular.
“It was a big leap of faith to make it this big,” Harvey
said in an interview last week. “After year number one,
our success here was so great that we were already sort Construction continues at Sportsman & Ski Haus in Whiteish. GREG LINDSTROM | FLATHEAD BEACON
of hitting ourselves in the head and thinking we didn’t play courses from around the world.
Outdoor improvements will have similarities to the

make it big enough.”
Harvey also said these systems would include pro-
Kalispell store’s architecture, and interior changes in-
Two years ago, Sportsman began planning a massive gramming to allow league play in the winter, in which lo- clude new looring, paint, additional dressing rooms, a
expansion for its Kalispell store, and now the plans are cal golfers can form teams and play other teams across new central entrance coniguration and more eicient
coming to fruition. Crews have already poured the foun- the country via the Internet.
cash register stations.
dation that will expand the store’s footprint to 75,000 Sportsman hired John Cole, who previously owned The remodel will help the store’s curb appeal, Har-
square feet, and Harvey expects the additions to be in Golf USA in Kalispell, to help them pioneer the expan- vey said, and should drive in more traic. Even now, the
place by May 2014.
sion, Harvey said.
store does pretty well, he said. Of the six stores in the
“Basically, the whole store needed room to grow,” he The store will also have a new archery department, Sportsman chain, the Whiteish location is ranked third

said. “The sales per square foot in our store have been with experts, equipment and a 20-yard shooting range.
in sales.
way bigger than the industry norms; practically every- Otherwise, most of the existing departments will “Whiteish is a real neat little town, and there’s a lot
thing we buy sells.”
get more room. Harvey said they’ve put considerable of local shopping loyalty that goes on there. As nice and
The total addition equals about 30,000 square feet, thought into how to expand these sections in a way that big as our Kalispell store is, there are lots of people in
with 25,000 on the ground loor and around 4,000 will maintain the feel of the store.
Whiteish who religiously shop (at the Whiteish loca-
square feet of additions to the oices on the second loor.
“Our mission when we built this store was to create tion),” Harvey said. “Providing them with a more com-
One of the biggest changes will be the addition of a a large, interesting sporting goods store that was big but fortable, updated shopping experience was a big priority

golf section, which should take up about 3,000 square didn’t feel like a box store,” he said. “We’re maintaining of ours.”
feet of the expansion, Harvey said.
that same philosophy into our expansion.”
All of the remodel projects in Whiteish should be
Inquiries about a golf department have been the Expansion will also mean the store won’t have to inished in December.
most common questions his sale associates on the loor stop ordering items they know they could sell but don’t The changes to both stores have been in the works for
deal with each summer, Harvey said, and summer after have space for, he said.
a while, he said, and just happened to coincide with the
summer those customers would be told there wasn’t one.
“It was getting to the breaking point on that, so we opening of the new Cabela’s store in Kalispell. But that
“They would look stunned,” he said. “What do you were having to make uncomfortable decisions of not opening hasn’t slowed Sportsman retail numbers, Har-
mean this beautiful store in the middle of this golf mecca buying stuf we knew we could sell, but we didn’t want to vey said, and he is conident in the sales projections sup-

doesn’t have a golf department?”
destroy how good we looked, merchandise-wise.”
porting the expansion.
Sportsman decided to act on the demand, and the The company’s Whiteish location is also getting a “The good news is that our sales have been just ter-
new golf department will have equipment from the facelift, with an extensive remodel to spruce up the exte- riic since Cabela’s moved in,” he said. “We beneit from
country’s top brands, but also a few extras, such as two rior of the store, which has been located at the Whiteish the traic as does everyone else up here.”
state-of-the-art video golf sections where customers can
Mountain Mall for about 20 years.
[email protected]

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