Warren Buffett's Big Bet on North Texas

When Warren Buffett's 1.9M SF Nebraska Furniture Mart opens next spring, it'll be the largest home furnishing store in America. (Between having a movie named after it and now this home furnishing megastore, Nebraska's stock is rising fast.) In terms Texans can understand: it’s bigger than 22 football fields. Bisnow got an up close look for you.

The 500k SF showroom is part of Berkshire Hathaway’s first real estate development in Texas, says Nebraska Furniture Mart chief strategy and development officer Jeff Lind. The store will have $7.5B in inventory, which allows about 40% of customers to take their purchases home same day. The furniture retailer is expected to generate $1B in annual sales. ($1B worth of area rugs could carpet the whole country.)

Nebraska Furniture Mart is part of the $1.5B 433-acre mixed-use Grandscape, which will include 560k SF of retail, says Jeff (pictured here Thursday an ICSC event; he's also the Grandscape prez). Jeff says the retail outlet could be called the “anti-developer” because—under Warren Buffett’s guidance—there’s no hurry to get the project done immediately. The goal is not the immediate impact, but what the project will be 10 to 20 years later. Jeff says the idea is to have all the infrastructure in place and proceed when the time is right.

The 4,900-space parking garage allows customers to walk right into the showroom.

The 1M SF distribution center will have 100 aisles measuring about 6.5 miles (photobombing bus mirror, not included). Employees (who are being hired now) will start stocking the store shelves next month and won’t wrap up until the opening, sometime in the spring, Jeff says. You can read even more details in our special report about Nebraska Furniture Mart here.