Outdoor Insight

S cheels All Sports is, above all, a full-line sporting goods store, carrying everything from the latest Air Jordans to Rawlings baseball bats to Dallas Cowboys licensed apparel. So why is it also con- sidered one of the country's most important and influential outdoor specialty stores? Well, when your newest stores are close to 300,000-square feet, when these stores carry close to 2.2 million items and you are located in the heart of America's Great Outdoors, you can be as special as you want to be. And when Scheels wants to do something, it does it big — and does it right. That's why all aspects of outdoor specialty retailing can be found under its massive roofs. Its sheer size dwarfs the inde- pendent specialty outdoor shops in its markets and Scheels sets the bar very high for even its largest competitors. Just imagine, for a moment, that you are an executive at [pick one] Field & Stream, or REI, or Cabela's or even the local Joe's Sport Shack, and for the past 18 months you have been watching the construction of a massive 250,000-square-foot Scheels store in Johnstown, CO. When the Johnstown store opens as scheduled this September it will become the second largest in Scheels' lineup, behind only its 295,000-square-foot store in Nevada. It will anchor an almost one million-square-foot retail center called Johnstown Plaza. How are you going to compete with a store that will employ 450 people, with 180 full-timers? And one whose local politicians are fawning over as a boon to their local economy. "This is exactly the business we want in Johnstown, a shop- ping experience that will keep customers coming back for more," says Johnstown mayor Mark Romanowski. Steve Scheel, chairman of the board, couldn't agree more. "The only problem I see is about half our company wants to move to Colorado," he said during a groundbreaking ceremony at the site. The Johnstown Scheels will house 95 different specialty shops within a footprint of more than four football fields, be- neath a sprawling skylight, fused together from 650 pieces of glass. The store will be divided into a men's side and a women's side, Scheel said. "If you can separate the women from the men, women will spend a lot more money," Scheel said. And you aren't safe if your store is outside of Colorado, either. Even before the gigantic new store opens, Scheels boasts of 26 stores in 11 states: North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, Kansas and Utah. Colorado will make it 27 stores in 12 states, and a 13th state is on the horizon. Yes, the next market where Scheels will set the tone for the next decade in outdoor specialty within a huge full-line store is in Texas, where big is always better. While competitors have until 2020 to prepare for it, the future store is already creating significant buzz in out- doors crazy north Texas. It will be built in The Colony's Grandscape development and at 300,000-square feet it will be about 12 times the size of a traditional sporting goods big-box and will surpass the Nevada location as the largest sporting goods store in the country. Of course, you need all of that room for the special attractions planned for the store, which include a 16,000-gallon aquarium, 65-foot high operating Ferris Wheel, a wildlife mountain and sports simulators. CEO Steve M. Scheel said the company has been scoping out Texas for 10 years. The Colony store will be the biggest Scheels, he said, and construction will begin in 2018. "(Participants in) youth sports and outdoors programs, those people are our people," Scheel told the Dallas Business Journal in explaining why the area is so attractive to the retailer. "And when there's a strong kids' market, there's a strong adult market for (sports and outdoor products) as well." When complete, the store will feature 85 specialty shops, including a golf shop, bike shop, ski shop, canoe and kayak shop and gun and hunting shops that will carry a selection of firearms. Scheel said his company will set itself apart from other sports and outdoors retailers such as Cabela's and Bass Pro Shops with its entertainment offerings. Inside the mega store will be a restaurant, Ginna's Cafe, serving soups and sandwiches, Starbucks drinks, 24 flavors of fudge and 18 flavors of gelato. O 20 17 SCHEELS ALL SPORTS SETTING THE PACE s /UTDOOR )NSIGHT s *ULY outdoorinsightmag.com BULLET POINTS Scheels is in the midst of an $84 million investment in a new 220,000-square-foot store in Lincoln, NE, which is replacing an 80,000-square-foot existing Scheels. It will open its doors in 2018. The newest addi- tion is in Rochester's Apache Mall in Min- nesota. The two-story, 144,000-square-foot store replaced a Sears location in the mall in 2015. The Rochester location fits some- where in the middle of the Scheels blueprint in terms of sheer size — larger than the 120,000-square-foot stores in Mankato and Waite Park, but smaller than the giant stores in Utah and Nevada. TRAIL MIX Headquarters Fargo, ND Stores 26 stores in 11 states Website scheelssports.com Sales Undisclosed Scheels combines outdoor specialty with full-line sporting goods— and fudge. Scheels is making its way into Colorado this fall — with Texas on the horizon.

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