Hobby Lobby expanding in Cape Girardeau

10,000 more square feet

Business Today

At the popular arts and crafts store on South Kingshighway in Cape Girardeau, the windows are boarded up and people are using a side entrance. The store is undergoing a 10,000-square-foot expansion, which will bring the total square footage to 51,000 in the spring.

"We're expanding the entire store front out 30 to 35 feet," said store manager David Vaughn, adding the work should be finished by the end of April or early May. A larger store sign will be added as well as sliding doors.

The extra 10,000 square feet will be devoted to making the seasonal section larger, Vaughn said, meaning more room for Christmas, fall and spring lines.

It will also add room to widen some of the aisles from 5 feet to 7 feet, especially the "race track" aisle that circles the store's outer walls. It also brings the store into line with its corporate inclination to build its new stores at about 50,000 square feet.

"The company is growing and the lines they are carrying are too," Vaughn said. "This will allow us to accommodate those needs. This store was just too small for the number of lines we carry and the volume we've grown to."

Vaughn estimates the work will cost at least half a million dollars. He said company profits have grown by 5 to 10 percent in each of its 11 years.

The Cape Girardeau store is among Hobby Lobby's 319 stores in 27 states. The company had sales in excess of $1 billion in 2003 and employs nearly 11,000 workers.

Hobby Lobby stores stock more than 60,000 items of arts and crafts supplies, fashion fabrics, baskets, silk flowers, needlework, wearable art, picture framing, cards, party supplies, furniture and a large department for seasonal merchandise.