Minneapolis show closes after 19 years
By Larry Thomas -- Furniture Today, May 31, 2004
MINNEAPOLIS — MINNEAPOLIS — The Minneapolis Home Furnishings Market, a fixture at International Market Square here since 1985, has quietly come to an end after several years of declining attendance.
Officials at IMS said the most recent market, held in February, was the last.
"It just didn't make economic sense for us to continue to produce the show," said Carolyn Olson, general manager of the facility. "Dealer attendance had declined … and we weren't able to see where the growth would be coming from."
She said the bulk of the market's attendees were from small and medium-sized furniture stores in Minnesota and six surrounding states. Many such stores have either gone out of business or were acquired by larger furniture store chains in recent years, Olson said.
The furniture market had occupied about 120,000 square feet of the eight-story IMS building. The remainder of the building — some 700,000 square feet — is occupied by designer showrooms that will continue to be open year-round, Olson said.
She said the portion of IMS that had been used by the furniture show is being converted into loft apartments. The building's location near downtown makes it a prime spot for that type of housing, she said.
The North Central Home Furnishings Representatives Assn., which had an office at IMS until a few weeks ago, unsuccessfully tried to find another location for the market, said Paul Lyman, an NCHFRA member who was on the search committee.
"The sites that were big enough to accommodate the show … were just not affordable," Lyman said. "So the committee decided not to pursue it further."
Lyman said he believes there is still sufficient demand for a once-a-year furniture market in the upper Midwest because many buyers from small and medium-sized stores cannot afford to attend the High Point market.
The IMS had staged two Minneapolis markets a year.
