Type: Retail

Size: 13,640 square feet

Developer: Kimco Realty

Architect: Miller Studio Architecture

Details: Minnesota would get its first La-Z-Boy retail furniture store under a plan pending before the Maple Grove Planning Commission.

The Michigan-based furniture maker, best known for its iconic line of recliner chairs, is the nation's second-largest manufacturer/distributor of residential furniture and has also developed an extensive retail real estate presence, with a network of 315 stand-alone La-Z-Boy Furniture Galleries stores and 570 Comfort Studios locations, each dedicated to marketing La-Z-Boy branded products.

The company says it is committed to a growth strategy it calls the "4-4-5 program," through which its expects to expand the La-Z-Boy Furniture Galleries stores network to 400 stores averaging $4 million in sales per store over the next five years. One of those new locations is likely to be the Fountains at Arbor Lakes in Maple Grove, where landowner Kimco Realty has submitted plans for a 13,640-square-foot La-Z-Boy Home Furnishing & Decor store.

The store is earmarked for a spot in the 100-acre Fountains project that was originally planned to hold a pair of 7,000-square-foot restaurants.

Under the plans, the two parcels would be combined into one site to accommodate the new store. The first plans submitted for the La-Z-Boy gallery, however, showed it pulled back from the corner with parking in between, counter to the city's preferences.

The La-Z-Boy item was pulled from the Maple Grove Planning Commission's Aug. 11 agenda and rescheduled for its Aug. 25 meeting.

Don Jacobson is a St. Paul-based freelance writer. He can be contacted at hotproperty.startribune@gmail.com.