Floor & Decor grows in Brooklyn

VIDEO SHOWCASE: Giant new store has big plans for pro customers.

5/3/2024

BROOKLYN, N.Y. —During a media tour of Floor & Decor’s newest location here in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn, Gerald McVeigh, vice president of PRO Services at Floor & Decor addressed a group of visitors by the pro desk.

He began to describe a long list of initiatives designed to reach and retain the pro customer: from delivery service, to pro credit solutions, to free pro education, to pro rewards and a pro mobile app.

“Everything that we do here for our professional customers is to help them grow their business, and in turn, to grow our business at Floor & Decor,” said McVeigh. “It’s relationship building.”

In Brooklyn, the new 129,000 square foot store is the company’s first in New York City, and the 230th overall. The store will be open seven days a week with extended hours. It will offer flat-rate delivery ($249 for any orders 10,000 lbs. or less) to apartments, homes and job sites within a 60-mile radius. The store and design center, which offers free appointments with designers to help customers select the right materials and design for their spaces, will open with a team of approximately 80 full-time and part-time associates.

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A bathroom vignette in the Brooklyn store.

One of the keys to the pro effort is the people. “All of the pro associates that are here every single day cater to the pros as they come into the store,” McVeigh said. They’re available via phone, too, through a Pro hotline. “Pros can call in right on the phone to get one of the pro managers or associates, to put in an order or whatever they may need for a job site. They can ask about products, do we have it? Can we place an order? Can I have that order delivered? It’s a dedicated pro team that we have.”

Located on the second floor in an industrial area of Sunset Park, the warehouse-format store opens to the public on May 6. In addition to pros, homeowners and DIYers will feel comfortable shopping the aisles and sophisticated showroom. And Floor & Decor offers a third-party Installation Made Easy (IME) program for those looking for installation services.

“Bringing our full-sized warehouse store to New York City’s most populous borough is incredibly exciting given the limited opportunities in Brooklyn to accommodate a home improvement store of our immense magnitude,” said Bryan Dodge, chief business development officer at Floor & Decor. “Brooklyn also illustrates our unique ability to adapt our store model to meet our customers in their neighborhoods.”

While Floor & Decor embraces the warehouse model, it doesn’t see home improvement warehouse giants Home Depot and Lowe’s as major competitors, according to McVeigh. Rather, it’s the specialty retailers who focus on flooring who compete more directly.

“An average store for us is about 70,000 square foot of hard surface product,” he explained. “Home Depot and Lowes are typically going to be at about 3,000 to 5,000 square feet for their hard surface flooring. A specialty retailer will increase to be about 10,000 to 20,000 square feet, and that's really our competition.”

Founded in 2000, the company has grown quickly, and it intends to keep on growing.

“This past year has marked a tremendous period of continued growth for Floor & Decor – from opening our 200th store, to entering the biggest city, retail, and unique housing market in the U.S.” said Tom Taylor, Chief Executive Officer at Floor & Decor. “We are excited to open our doors and service all NYC homeowners and construction pros with our massive selection of hard-surface flooring.”