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Photobucket album with a growing collection of WIP pictures:

http://s806.photobucket.com/albums/yy350/ShowcaseComicsandGames/New%20store%20work%20in%20progress/#!cpZZ1QQtppZZ16

It shows off all the ugly work of building a game shop. Demolition is fun, especially dealing with large glass areas. Carpet has been cleaned 3 times now. All walls need either new slatwall (2.5 tons so far) or 2 coats of primer and then paint. We'll have several hundred man hours into what is a pretty simple build out and clean up. Then the joy of moving many tons of merchandise in one night.)

When done, we'll have a much larger store, going from 2100 sf to 5500 sf, and incorporating all the work we did in our gaming bunker into the new store. First day is on track to be July 5th. Then 3 hectic days of cleaning the place up, and we roll into DakkaCon on the 8th-10th!





Glass mirrors, lots of bad luck. Demolisheds about a dozen of them.

Amazing stuff.

Can't wait to see the pictures of the grand opening.

..well, bearing in mind that I've seen the current, great (but smaller) store and the bunker. You should link in a couple pics of the current store and the bunker to let the unenlightened imagine how awesome fitting those two things together will be.

I suspect that you'll finally surpass the standard the old Dakka store set in terms of gaming space/tables in a store.

Sweeeet! Keep up the updates!!

Mannahnin wrote:..well, bearing in mind that I've seen the current, great (but smaller) store and the bunker. You should link in a couple pics of the current store and the bunker to let the unenlightened imagine how awesome fitting those two things together will be.

I suspect that you'll finally surpass the standard the old Dakka store set in terms of gaming space/tables in a store.

As requested:

Current Store:





Bunker

Oh wow...I love the look of that store, with the colorful gothic-style windows and cardboard Space Marine. Was the plastic Superman custom made or does DC sell stuff like that to stores who carry their products? Are the mall store and the bunker two separate stores, and are you merging them into one or just expanding the mall store?

Sidstyler wrote:Oh wow...I love the look of that store, with the colorful gothic-style windows and cardboard Space Marine. Was the plastic Superman custom made or does DC sell stuff like that to stores who carry their products? Are the mall store and the bunker two separate stores, and are you merging them into one or just expanding the mall store?

The Superman flying above the store would be about 8 foot tall if standing up. He's a one of a kind carved from soft styrofoam, and then coated in layer after layer of hard as rock resin. He, the arches, and the 2-D space marine up front were made for us by a design studio called ArtTech, out of Minniappolis, about 15 years ago. We had to work with the mall a bit. Too Grimdark wasn't allowed, and we had to brighten some colors, remove some skulls on the space marine, etc.

We'll be moving all the storefront pieces over to the new store and re-installing them. They had a total cost of about 15k for everything. The neon sign was about 5k. This was all 15-20 years ago. Now it's going to cost us nearly 7k just to move and re-install the pieces.

The bunker was set up about 2 years ago in an unused storefront. Worked well, but hard to co-ordinate and keep it open all the time. We worked a deal with the mall to let us combine the bunker and main store into one, much larger space. The new space is actually about 1000 sf bigger than the old store and bunker combined. We'll have about 14 tables up for normal open gaming, all 8'x4', a large conference table for board gaming, and some smaller plastic tables set up for CCG's. It can all be re-arranged and swapped out with more stuff from the back rooms to give us enough tables for a 50 person GT with minimal effort.

What I wouldn't give to live near a gaming place like this :/

Mikhaila wrote:

Why are there boxes hanging from the ceiling, Mikhaila?

Boxes don't go there!

They contain GW, limited edition, air, sealed and shipped over from Nottingham.

wooo Nottingham! game day soon >=] 6000 point apoc battle at the factory (if my mate doesnt have another hissy fit at the last moment)

Bigger n' my house

Really impressive stuff. It puts most, if not all GW stores to shame. Better than Forbidden Planet too

I'm impressed that a store of this nature supports so much retail space. In the UK, FLGS and comic book shops are cramped pokey little places and usually smell bad.

If I remember right, Mikhaila said he's one of the "flagship" stores at his particular mall--so he gets a premium space due to seniority.

Well, and Superman would kick anyone's butt who opposed the move.

So where is this store going to be located exactly?

Congrats on the store, man!

wow, can't wait to come down and take a look! This is impressive, great work!

UG

brettz123 wrote:So where is this store going to be located exactly?

Granite Run Mall
1067 West Baltimore Pike
Media, PA

JC Penny's wing, upper level, accross from Chick-fil-A

Kanluwen wrote:Why are there boxes hanging from the ceiling, Mikhaila?

Boxes don't go there!

They sell comic books... and they sell the boxes for storing them. Those are the different sizes of boxes showing the prices. That way they don't have to keep a wall of boxes and just store them unfolded and flat.

Kanluwen wrote:Why are there boxes hanging from the ceiling, Mikhaila?

Boxes don't go there!

Can you stop telling people where they can and cannot have their boxes. Man you always do this!!!

Looking great, man! I will definitely have to make the trip down there again to check out the new digs.

Flashman wrote:I'm impressed that a store of this nature supports so much retail space. In the UK, FLGS and comic book shops are cramped pokey little places and usually smell bad.

Truthfully, this is true of most FLGS and comic book stores around here, too. Well, maybe not the smelling bad, but definitely the crampedness. I think it's kind of par for the couse for stores like this, especially if they sell more than just gaming stuff. After all, you need room to display all of your different products, and wargamers and cardplayer take up lots of space, especially when there's a tournament going on. Showcase Comics is easily the most impressive store of its kind I have ever been in, and I'm sure the new, more spacious location will blow even the old one away.

Looks great so far, can't wait to check it out when it's all done

H.B.M.C. wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:Why are there boxes hanging from the ceiling, Mikhaila?

Boxes don't go there!

Can you stop telling people where they can and cannot have their boxes. Man you always do this!!!

But.. how are they up there? I have to agree that boxes do not need their own spacial rift.
Why would you move, I looks like Chaos is strong with your current location .

What ever happened to the ole' dakka store?

Wow, that's a damned impressive store.

Around where I live, comic book and gaming stores tend to be small things. I did once find a more roomy one where I got some nice trees, but they weren't into wargaming at all.

Kanluwen wrote:

Mikhaila wrote:

Why are there boxes hanging from the ceiling, Mikhaila?

Boxes don't go there!

"Do you sell boxes to put comic books in? What size is a large? Do they have handles? What do they look like once you fold them up"

/Pointtoceiling

Wow, impressive cant wait to see the new store when it opens. You guys always have the best 40k/wargaming inventory in the Philly area.

Great looking store.

Demo is fun. I can't wait to pull out the sledgehammer again to punch some walls.

mikhaila wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:

Mikhaila wrote:

Why are there boxes hanging from the ceiling, Mikhaila?

Boxes don't go there!

"Do you sell boxes to put comic books in? What size is a large? Do they have handles? What do they look like once you fold them up"

/Pointtoceiling

But...why the ceiling? Is it just more fun to say "Look up!" or was it just a spur of the moment "Man, those boxes would look awesome hanging from the ceiling" decision?

It boggles my mind, Mik!