Cainz opens a second Ueda store 32 years after its first
Cainz opens an 8,498-square-metre store in Ueda, Nagano on October 29 -- its second in the city 32 years after the first -- with a farm-supply corner built for local apple and vegetable growers, another step in the home-improvement chain's steady run at suburban floor space.
Cainz said it will open Cainz Ueda Kokubu, an 8,498-square-metre store in Ueda, Nagano, on Thursday, October 29 -- its second location in the city, 32 years after Cainz Ueda, its first, opened there in 1994, according to the company's announcement. The new store sits near Ueda-Sugadaira interchange and Shinano Railway's Shinanokokubunji Station, with 350 parking spaces and a staff of 135.
The store carries a dedicated agricultural-supplies corner -- harvesting tools and farm machinery -- aimed at Ueda's fruit and vegetable growers, plus a reform centre with kitchen, bathroom and toilet displays and a counter for home-renovation consultations. Cainz said the roughly 72,000-item assortment includes bedding and cold-weather goods suited to the region's winters, alongside a pet corner with a bookable "smart dog run" and a community space that will display local junior-high students' koppa-ningyo (traditional wood-chip dolls) for about a month from opening. Cainz signed a comprehensive cooperation agreement with Ueda City on October 13 and a public-safety agreement with Ueda Police on October 20.
A 32-year gap between stores in the same city says less about Cainz's appetite for Nagano and more about how thin that appetite was until recently: the chain has been one of the more active takers of suburban retail space as department stores and smaller general merchandisers retreat, and a second Ueda store -- rather than a replacement for the first -- reads as confidence that the city can support two.