New Lee Valley Tools Store: Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter...

Well,
I was privileged today, to have Robin Lee give me an extensive tour of the
new Lee Valley store in Toronto. The only thing I can say is that we're all
doomed to the poor house.

The display floor is huge. If you've ever been to the eastern or western
Toronto stores, you'll find this new central downtown store to be about
three times the size. At a rough guess I'd say that the sales floor is about
50 yards long and about 20 yards wide. Immediately upon entering the 1st
floor, customers pass by a massive display of antique axe heads and an
adjoining display of machetes. (I suspect they're there to intimidate
customers into spending more).

The next thing I noticed is that there's wood everywhere. Massive 12"x12"?
square vertical wooden posts support the roof structure. The floor is all
wood. A good portion of the walls are covered with wood. The sales counters
are wood. This isn't one of your new construction metal and concrete stores,
it's a majestic old building that literally injects the essence of wood into
your soul.

The following thing I noticed is that all this floor space permits a more
open display of products. There appears to be fewer glass cabinets than what
I've seen in other stores with most products out in the open and available
for close examination. This may or may not change slightly as the store
approaches its grand opening later on this month, but for now it's very
convenient to be able to handle quite a few articles of merchandise.
Liberally sprinkled around the floor you'll find a number of customer
operated terminals with keyboard, LCD monitor and mouse. While building your
order onscreen, you get immediate feedback on product availability. It's an
interactive screen with full search functions and closely follows the Lee
Valley Tools website, so if you're familiar with the website, you won't have
any trouble placing an order. Complete your order and then head off to one
of the sales counters all the while mentally preparing yourself to part with
most of your hard earned cash. Nothing new there except for all the displays
enticing you as you journey to the sales counters aligning two sides of the
floor.

But I digress, I'm on a tour, right? All the while chatting with Robin, I
followed him through a lunch room, out onto a shipping dock, in through
another shipping door and down the freight elevator. There we came out on
the basement level consisting of a number of people busily constructing
rooms for overstock, seminars and classroom presentations. It's a work in
progress, but there's a good chance most if not all of it will be finished
by the time of the grand opening. I followed Robin back the same way, up the
freight elevator and into the stock room adjoining the sales floor. If
anything, the stock room is *bigger* than the huge sales floor. Interesting
enough, the floor of the stock room is constructed out of adjacent 2" x 12"
wooden timbers all laid on edge similar to a laminated work bench, except
that it's 12" thick. The ceiling, although not the same type of construction
as the stock room floor, is also constructed of huge interlaced beams of
wood. Would that such massive displays of large timbers of wood be as easily
available today as days gone by.

That's about the end of the tour. While many consider Lee Valley Tools to be
a purveyor of tool porn, I'd equate this building and all those tools to be
the woodworker's equivalent of a drug induced fantasy world, except that
it's not fantasy, it all really exists.

And naturally, Robin and staff were perfectly happy to take most of my hard
earned money in exchange for my new toy, a Kreg 3 Master System.

Oh, and I forgot to mention. This building is fully wheelchair accessible.
Elevator to all floors, wheelchair accessible washrooms on all floors and
lowered counters to make your buying experience just a little bit easier.
There's no bias here. Robin was perfectly happy to take my money as much as
he is to take yours. So, mortgage your house, sell your car and cash in your
children's college funds before you head off to see this new store. If
you're lucky you'll come out with enough change to put into the parking
meter before you turn around and go back into the store to look around some
more. <g>

Thanks for the tour Robin, much appreciated. Let me know the next time
you're in town, I owe you lunch.

Dave Moore

DB

Dave Balderstone