The Great Indoors (Hoffman Estates, Ill.), the design-driven home improvement chain launched by Sears Roebuck, has announced that it will open 11 new stores in 2001, and that thegreatindoors.com is on the Internet and open for business.
The planned 2001 openings will begin in the spring, in the Denver area (Broomfield) and in Schaumburg and Lombard, Ill. Two stores are planned for summer openings in Southern California (Chino Hills and Irvine). The six fall openings will be in Scottsdale, Ariz., Novi, Mich., Columbus, Ohio, Cincinnati and two in Houston. That will bring the chain to 15 stores, including the original Lone Tree-Denver store, opened in February 1998. The three that followed in the next three years are in Scottsdale and the Detroit and Dallas areas. The concept store competes with upscale home improvement stores such as Home Depot EXPO.