Kaua'i retailers gird for battle
By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Kaua'i Bureau
LIHU'E, Kaua'i — The arrival of Home Depot is shaking up hardware retailing on Kaua'i, as it does everywhere.
Jan TenBruggencate • The Honolulu Advertiser
The island's largest hardware business, Hale Kaua'i, has already begun evolving — closing its Nawiliwili retail store to focus on contractor sales, and planning to refocus its Kapa'a and Koloa stores to better suit the needs of those communities.
Shelving materials are stacked in the parking lot of Home Depot on Kaua'i. The big-box retailer's arrival has already led one Kaua'i firm to close a store.
The owner of the island's oldest hardware store, M. Tanaka Store, said he doesn't yet know how to respond to the big-box retailer's arrival, and hopes his firm's commitment to service will help it survive.
The new Home Depot is the state's fifth, after Honolulu; Maui; Kailua, Hawai'i; and Pearl City. A sixth, in Kapolei, is already under construction and scheduled to open in March 2004.
The Lihu'e store — all 125,000 square feet and 426 parking stalls of it — is scheduled to open at 6 a.m. Oct. 23. It rests on 10 acres of leased land just south of Kukui Grove Center and will open with 142 employees.
Store manager Leonard Peters, 35, who was born in American Samoa and has worked 11 years with the company, said the firm is counting on the $7.9 million facility taking advantage of expected development and the expansion of the island's economy.
"This is a smaller market than we traditionally put a Home Depot in, but it's here in anticipation of the growth of the island over the next few years," Peters said.
He said the Kaua'i Home Depot is about 30,000 square feet smaller than the Honolulu store, but will carry much the same mix of merchandise. Its garden area is twice as big as the Honolulu store, and it will be the first Home Depot in the state to have an equipment rental business. It will rent equipment such as paint sprayers, carpet cleaners, nailers, ditch diggers, stump grinders and, eventually, Bobcats and backhoes, he said.
Jan TenBruggencate • The Honolulu Advertiser
Like the managers who opened big-box retailers Kmart and Wal-Mart before him, Peters insists that local business can do just fine in the presence of the nationwide chain if they tailor their operations properly.
Employees check out the new Lihu'e branch of Home Depot. Its opening is putting pressure on local retailers, leading them to focus on service, narrow their operations or make other changes.
"I've seen businesses flourish with us coming into the market — mainly by specializing and offering products we don't," he said.
Hale Kaua'i studied the Home Depot situation for some time before deciding it could not compete on a retail level, said the firm's chief operating officer, Tom Rietow.
"We spent time on this," he said. "It made no sense to keep the retail business right down the street from them. They'd just blast us out of the water."
Rietow said Hale Kaua'i at its Nawiliwili site will sell the kinds of equipment and materials contractors need. The main entrance is now through the lumberyard. The firm plans to lease out its storefront to another business.
M. Tanaka Store, which opened about 1915, plans to wait and see.
"We're bracing ourselves for this competition. I'm sure we're going to be having to make some major adjustments, but I don't know what to expect yet," said owner Roy Tanaka.
The firm has closed its plumbing contracting operations but still runs a small sheet-metal business along with the store.
"We'll have to try and see what we're really strong in and try to sharpen our operations. We're going to focus on service," he said.
Hale Kaua'i's decision to close its Lihu'e retail store takes the company by the end of the year from the island's largest hardware operation to third place, after Home Depot and Ace Hardware Kaua'i's three stores.
Ace Hardware officials did not return calls for comment.
Rietow said his firm is committed to surviving.
"It's about economics. We will adapt however we have to," he said.
Reach Jan TenBruggencate at jant@honoluluadvertiser.com or (808) 245-3074.
