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Best Buy files store plan for Toys 'R' Us site
(Messenger-Inquirer (Owensboro, KY) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Feb. 17--Best Buy is apparently moving forward with plans to take over the Toys "R" Us store at 5101 Frederica St. this spring.
A spokesman for the Minneapolis-based chain said this week that he can't discuss a project "until we have a signed lease."
But Best Buy has already filed plans with the Owensboro Metropolitan Planning Commission for the project. And it is scheduled to open bids Monday for renovating the store.
Toys "R" Us is in the final days of a store-closing sale.
Plans show the Owensboro store will have 27,530 square feet.
That's considerably smaller than the company's average of 45,000 square feet.
But Best Buy has been designing different size stores for different markets, according to its Web site.
In 2003, it opened its first two 20,000-square-foot stores. It now has 43 of them.
In 1999, the company had 43 of the 28,000-square-foot stores. This year, it has eight.
Best Buy opened its first nine 30,000-square-foot stores in 2000. This year, it has 171.
But the 45,000-square-foot plan is still the biggest with 425 stores.
There are also 47 stores with 58,000 square feet.
The company says about half of the stores it plans to open this year will have the 30,000-square-foot format. The rest will be split between the 20,000- and 45,000-square-foot models.
Best Buy says it opened 104 stores in 2005, bringing its total to 932 stores in the United States and Canada.
Revenues for the 10 months ending Dec. 31 were $25.9 billion -- up 4.1 percent from a year earlier.
The 40-year-old chain is a major supplier of electronics, office equipment, entertainment items and appliances.
Toys "R" Us announced last month that it is pulling out of Owensboro after a decade. The local store is one of 73 being closed this spring as the chain struggles to improve profits.
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