ELMHURST, Ill. -- With a couple years of experience under its belt with its 5,000-square-foot Power Market stores, Power Mart, the company, is ready to grow with two new concepts that could break ground in the next year.
"We're looking to do two more concepts," Power Mart president Sam Odeh told CSP Daily News in an exclusive interview. "One is the Power Pumper. The theme there is to compete with the big-box [convenience stores] in terms of making it a very fuel-friendly site, with the backcourt being the same we have with the Power Market."
This concept would be built on at least 1.5 acres of land, much like the company's Power Market sites; however, it would not include a separate building for a foodservice concept, instead opting for a larger forecourt.
(Click here to see a video of a Power Market site.)
"The other concept is Power Center. That will be a destination, where you will be able to conduct half of your normal daily chores on one facility," Odeh said, noting things like grocery shopping, dining, spa treatments, video gaming and more.
While the necessary large footprint will require a major initial investment, Odeh said he's looking forward to testing the concept it the western suburbs of Chicago.
"We're looking to break ground in June 2012," he said. "We would hope that they would be completed by 2013."
Odeh said in 2009, when the Power Mart site in Elmhurst, Ill., first opened, that it also had a fairly large price tag: $5 million "from A to Z." But that's the price of standing out in today's market.
"I think that what people need to understand in our industry is if you're going to do it, do it big, do it attractive, do it right. ... [Customers] need to say 'wow.' And the wow doesn't come cheap."
The Power Market concept is built on 2020 retailing standard. As Odeh put it, "What would the sites need to be, come 2020, to meet the consumer demands?"
While Power Mart will operate the new stores for a while, ultimately Odeh would like to see the various store concepts roll out as a franchise, first across the Midwest, then across the country.
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