Seeing the prototype “urban” Home Depot store tucked tightly amongst a three-flat residence and other decidedly citified surroundings in Chicago's trendy Lincoln Park neighborhood is something of a shock. Still, the more compact version of the home improvement retailer's dwelling marks a change from the usual Home Depot locations, which usually sprawl across acres of land in suburban locales.

The new urban format — which will typically range in size from 50,000 to 80,000 sq. ft. — recognizes that large cities represent a massive untapped and largely overlooked consumer base for the Atlanta-based company. It also helps at the corporate level by showing investors that there are avenues where the company can still grow. The concept of the urban format debuted in the spring of 2002 with the 61,000-sq.-ft. store in New York City's Brooklyn borough. According to one source, one-third of the first-day customers at this location got to the location on foot, a significant change from the suburban stores. The Brooklyn store includes a mezzanine, a first for the retailer, as well as a kiosk where shoppers can order online from the web site. There are about 30 percent fewer SKUs than the typical store, but a traditional Home Depot store located just six miles away to fulfill other requests.

Because of a required two levels of parking, the Chicago prototype (located at Halsted and Schubert streets) is larger than the prescribed template for the typical urban Home Depot store — about 106,000 sq. ft. With a footprint of 370 ∞ 145 ft., the retail space will take up the lower two levels, with an additional upper two levels (including a roof deck) reserved for 217 parking spaces. Rosemont, Ill.-based McShane Construction Corp. began grading on the site in February 2002 and completed the shell building in 10 months. Home Depot required an additional three months for its own improvement work.

By using precast panels to build the shell rather than traditional cast-in-place methods, McShane estimates that it shaved four to five months off its construction time. In addition, the cost of precast panels was less than the cost of a cast-in-place structure, according to a McShane spokesperson. The bulk of the precast was supplied by ATMI Precast of Aurora, Ill. All totaled, the Lincoln Park Home Depot includes: 102 column PCs, 109 beams, 467 hollow-core planks, 275 double tees (supplied by Burlington, Wisc.'s J.W. Peters, Inc.), 244 wall panels, and 15 special shapes.

Working with designs from developer JDL Development Corp. and lead project architect Scott Hindsley of Chicago's Archideas, Inc., the building was erected on a site with extremely tight space restrictions. Most of the staging equipment and materials had to be placed within the structure's footprint since the busy location and limited street parking for residents prohibited the closing of traffic lanes for extended periods. McShane worked closely with consultants and corporate representatives from Home Depot to develop a building plan that met both site constraints and the tenant's needs.

In addition to Brooklyn and Chicago, Home Depot also has inner-city stores completed or under construction in Staten Island, Boston and Pittsburgh. In addition, a high-profile, 130,000-sq.-ft. Manhattan location in East Harlem is in the planning stages. After tearing down an abandoned factory building on the East River side of F.D.R. Drive, Home Depot will construct a two-story facility carrying 50,000 SKUs, the same as suburban stores, but with a product line customized to meet the needs of apartment dwellers, landlords, and contractors.