San Francisco Mart Expands Temporary Exhibition

Furniture World News

The San Francisco Mart announced the expansion of the Promenade and Accent Corner temporary exhibitions for the upcoming Summer Market, July 21–25, 2000. The San Francisco Mart is leasing space in the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, directly across Market Street from the Mart's main entrance and will move these two successful exhibits to that building, resulting in a 24% net increase in temporary exhibition space in July. "The Civic Auditorium will enable us to offer temporary prospects on our waiting list an opportunity to show products at the San Francisco Market," comments SF Mart President Michael Gennet. "Our recent Winter Market was enormously successful and included a totally sold-out temporary section. Increasing our leasing footage through use of the Auditorium will provide buyers with more choices of product categories, styles and prices." The Mart is moving the two temporary areas to larger quarters because the former Promenade space within the Mart is being leased to Red Herring, a major Internet office tenant. This fast-growing magazine publisher and Internet site is one of three new tenants absorbed by the SF Mart from the cadre of new multimedia companies in the Bay Area. The former Accent Corner space will be leased to a furniture tenant. "Office tenants will continue to be a very small percentage of the Mart's total rentable footage," assures Gennet. "In fact, with the addition of the Civic Auditorium space, the actual footage we devote to home furnishings will be increased." Shuttle buses from nearby hotels will stop first at the Auditorium, enabling buyers to efficiently register for Market badges before entering the Mart itself. The Auditorium is a short walk from the Mart and is also contiguous to the large Civic Center Parking Garage. The San Francisco Mart is the largest home furnishings market center in the West with 300 permanent showrooms containing nearly 1,000 manufacturers, as well as 70 temporary exhibit booths. The semi-annual Markets, held in January and July, attract thousands of retail buyers and designers from a broad domestic and international audience.