A new furniture store is expected to open in Ames this fall, filling a gap in the market that has existed for more than a decade.

A Furniture Mart/Ashley furniture store is under construction between Walmart and Target on Southeast Fifth Street, just west of South Duff Avenue. It is scheduled to open in November. It will be the first furniture store in Ames since Home Furniture and Appliance closed around 2010.

Kelly Diekmann, planning and housing director for the city of Ames, said the absence of a furniture store in the local market was a driving force in a decision by the city council in March to approve a partial five-year tax abatement for the project.

While he did not know the date that a furniture store last operated in Ames, he said in an email it could be as long as two decades.

The 91,000-square-foot store will employ around 20 people.

According to city documents, the estimated value of the building is $7 million with estimated annual sales of between $9 million and $10 million.

While the building will have two brand signs on the outside, it will be one open, combined space inside that will carry Ashley, La-Z-Boy, Flexsteel, Holland House and Aspen House Furniture.

According to a market analysis provided by Furniture Mart, construction of the store is expected to contribute $30 million to the local economy.

Dylan Kline, director of business development for the Ames Regional Economic Alliance, said the store’s construction culminates a two-year process to bring the store to Ames.

“We have worked closely with [the store] throughout the whole process, helping them find design professionals and helping them navigate the city process,” said Kline, who is on the city’s development review committee.

He said there is demand for a furniture store in Ames, and that having the Furniture Mart and Ashley Furniture store will help keep local customers from traveling out of town.

“There’s significant leakage in the Ames market for furniture,” Kline said. “There is a demand that people are leaving our area and going to Des Moines or Boone, or even Marshalltown. They’re going to other places to spend their dollars.”

Because Fifth Street dead ends, there were some challenges in negotiating access to the building and the truck traffic that will occur, he said.

The road is not designed for heavy delivery truck traffic, so instead of semitrailers, the company agreed to use smaller box trucks as it negotiated an agreement with the city, Kline said.

“That was one of the things that we had to work really closely with for the city, and they had to help us navigate how to design the entrance,” he said.

Kline also said the city required the company to build up the site before beginning construction because otherwise it would have been in a flood plain.

“They spent significant dollars building up the building pad to build it out of the flood plain,” Kline said. “That was a requirement of the city. So they spent significant dollars into site prep before they even started construction. That was another element of the incentive discussion with the city.”

The store will help fill a need in a growing college town, he said.

“We have a need for filing dorm rooms and apartments, and because we’re a college town we have a lot of high-end earners and folks who want to spend money on replacing furniture,” he said. “Having those dollars staying in our community instead of going elsewhere is, I think, paramount to why the city said, ‘Hey, let’s do what we can to get this project here.’”