Rising out of a once desolate landscape, much like a 2lst Century acropolis, looms the massive World Market Center (WMC). And unless your head has been buried in the desert sands or you just never quite understood (or cared) what was really happening with these monoliths, all of us living in Las Vegas will be impacted by these buildings in numerous positive ways for years to come.

“It’s the most important new home furnishings market right in the middle of the hottest town on the planet” reads the intro of the Preview Magazine of the World Market Center. “Las Vegas is getting better with every season – more exhibitors, a greater diversity of products, more international brands and more showrooms.” And I might add, it’s all absolutely true.

With the opening of the second building at the start of the Winter Market (January 29 – February 2nd) for furniture retailers from every region of the U.S. and from all parts of the world (everyone loves to comes to Las Vegas!) an additional 1.6 million square feet of showroom space featuring 300 new showrooms will have been added to the original building’s 1.3 million square feet which opened only one year ago for a present total of 500 permanent showrooms! Amazing progress and a sure sign that the brilliant foresight of founders and management is truly paying off in a big way.

Being extremely familiar myself with the inner workings of furniture showrooms and what designers are looking for (having worked as a professional designer of furniture and interiors for almost 30 years) I can tell you that at the World Market Center buyers don’t just experience an amazing collection of international styles and sophistication – but a whole new approach to shopping as well. The WMC is now home to 10 of the top 25 U.S. furniture manufacturers and importers and soon, with the completion of Building C sometime next year, (the 3rd in an eventual total of 7 design buildings on a 57 acre campus!), the first 3 buildings will total 5 million square feet of permanent home furnishings showrooms cutting across all industry segments.

But what makes these buildings singularly unique, I believe, for design professionals and furniture retailers alike, is the fact that there really are two entities operating side-by-side at WMC for a truly year-round operation. In addition to the many wholesale furniture showrooms that basically comprise the WMC (and are generally only open for several days twice a year at Market time – January and July) there is the ever-growing and dynamic Las Vegas Design Center – finally and at long last an almost limitless resource for designers and their clients right here in our own backyard!

What this means is that soon designers will no longer be compelled to shop for and with their clients in cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and New York searching for products previously unavailable in our own city. The day isn’t far off when all we will have to do is get in our cars and make the short hop to the WMC where we can see the latest innovative design for home and office, shop and dine in perfect comfort in state-of-the art buildings connected by sky-bridges at every level. It also means that WMC is a trade only facility. Access to the Las Vegas Design Center and to the wonderful First Friday seminars (and their delicious lunches!) is limited to design professionals and their guests and not open to the general public.

Having spent a good part of my professional life in Los Angeles and in the shadow of the great Pacific Design Center, never could I have imagined when I relocated to Las Vegas some 13 years ago (after one of the those nasty Southern California earthquakes), that I would be moving to the future furniture capitol of the United States. If someone had told me then that Las Vegas would one day supplant the venerable High Point, North Carolina – in every way- I would have thought them foolish at best. Let me share some basic facts with you about WMC and you be the judge.

There are at present 80 plus designer showrooms open in Buildings 1 and 2 that comprise the current Las Vegas Design Center and the 3rd building will feature Design Center showrooms on floors 1,3,4 and 5 creating a true one-stop shopping destination for buyers. This third phase will be nearly 2.1 million square feet in size and 16 stories with a construction cost of over $500 million. It will be the largest and most diversified showroom structure planned for the 12 million square foot campus which will render WMC when complete bigger than all showroom space in the city of High Point!

The construction schedule is vigorous to say the least: The 3rd building opens in 2008. The 4th (at 1.8 million sq. ft.) in 2009, the 5th (also at 1.8 million sq. ft.) in 2010, the 6th building (at 1.3 million sq. ft.) in 2011, the 7th (at 1.3 million sq. ft.) opening in 2012 and finally the 8th in 2012 (again at 1.3 million sq. ft.). Judging by what I have seen accomplished to date, I for one place full confidence in the successful fruition of this superior project.

The Preview Magazine calls the WMC “a phenomenal new design resource and the industry’s next premier design center. Fresh, direction-setting and completely unique. An indispensable source of one-of-a-kind products.” And that it surely is as you will learn in future columns of “Design Connection” when we visit the showrooms that are making design history here in Las Vegas.

There will be many “firsts” such as the first trade-only Kreiss Collection in the United States featuring the launch of the Agassi Graf Collection, the only Lam Lee Group showroom outside of High Point featuring the most exquisite finishes and out-of-this-world designs executed by the greatest craftsman in China, Dillon Wells with its thousands of art pieces and accessories, and the great design resources of such companies as Andre Originals, Brownstone and JBS Environments which offer an array of superior products at extremely attractive price points.