Canadian retailer Improve plans on bringing improvements in home improvement retailing to the United States at a giant new store in metro Atlanta. The company is reportedly planning to locate its second massive home improvement warehouse adjacent to I-285 in Doraville on a 21-acre parcel.
Improve billed itself as “totally unique to Canada,” when it opened its first store located in Vaughn, a city in Ontario. The company says it leases or sells space to “more than 350 different home improvement companies that are the best within their category” in its Ontario store.
Its warehouse-style facility in Georgia, a kind of supermall, would be open to the public and offer more than 400 home improvement services and products, including interior design, architectural and engineering services, HVAC systems, and products for kitchens and bathrooms, such as appliances, cabinets, windows, lighting, and flooring. Vendors such as designers, renovators and boutique retailers would offer select high-end products as well.
InsiderAdvantage discovered that the project was discussed in a Nov. 2, 2016 Doraville Planning Commission meeting. Publicly available notes from the meeting indicate that the City’s Community Development Department was approached by “an applicant interested in constructing a new home improvement center approximately 320,000 square feet in size. The facility, open to the general public, would otherwise operate similar to the AmericasMart in Atlanta.”
The Planning Commission amended its Light Manufacturing District to allow a permitted use Home Improvement Center to diversify the city’s commercial and industrial sectors and expand the employment base in the community.
Kirill Soloviev, Improve’s president of marketing, sales and business development, says:
“There are more than 30,000 businesses in greater metro Atlanta that currently share the market. At Improve, there’s going to be around 350 that will take a huge portion of what those 30,000 are sharing now. Also, in a way, it will become a business club. All stores in the mall will be working with each other, sharing clients and referrals.”
