Modern Home plans to open a second store in Pocatello.
“We secured some land and started construction about a month ago,” said Alan Sparks, who will co-own both stores with his wife, Sharlie.
The Sparks own the Modern Home store at 3157 Eagle Drive in Ammon that opened in 2017.
Their new location will be at 1916 Hurley Drive in Pocatello, right next to Ashley Home Store.
Alan said several factors led them to Pocatello.
“About four years ago we built a warehouse in Idaho Falls,” he said. “It has just been a fantastic facility. We built it a little larger than we needed.”
That spurred the idea of opening another store.
“We wanted to use the operational efficiencies of our main warehouse here and open another store in the immediate vicinity,” Alan said.
The makeup of their customers also led them to Pocatello.
“We have a lot of customers from Pocatello,” Alan said. “We actually had a lot of requests and feedback like ‘We’d love to have you open here.’”
Alan said customer requests and watching the company make a lot of truck hauls to Pocatello helped decide the issue of expansion.
Their youngest son, Jaxon, is the store manager in Ammon, and their oldest son, Dannen, is moving from Arizona, where he was involved in the family’s furniture business, to be the store manager in Pocatello.
“It’ll definitely be a family business deal,” Alan said. “Each store will be ran by one of sons, and my wife and I will still be very involved in both.”
According to Alan, construction of the Pocatello store is expected to be completed in mid-August with the grand opening planned for Labor Day weekend in September.
Alan said the Modern Home store in Pocatello will employ between eight to 10 people. Featured brands will include Tempur-Pedic, Ashley, Benchcraft, Jonathan Louis and many more.
The lead up to construction has been smooth, Alan said, except the U.S. government shutdown last October and November caused a little delay.
“I’m stretching here, because everything has been really smooth so far,” Alan said.
He credited the Bank of Commerce and the local Small Business Administration for their lending efforts, and Booth Architecture and Construction Solutions Company, both of Pocatello, are building the new store.
“We have a very good working relationship, and I’m very pleased with those two entities,” Alan said.