A Mart For All Seasons.

• Author: REED, CARSON
• Position: Denver, Colorado, merchandise mart

THE DENVER MERCHANDISE MART HAS WEATHERED CHANGE AND CONTROVERSY, AND BUCKED A NATIONWIDE TREND.

By necessity, Darrell Hare is a practitioner of the art of management-by-wandering-around.

As president and general manager of the Denver Merchandise Mart, Hare has to cover a lot of ground. His daily schedule includes countless crisscrossings of the 841,000-square-foot complex, putting out fires, glad-handing tenants and exhibitors, and generally keeping an eye on things.

At the Gift, Jewelry and Resort Show, for instance, Hare was up early and making the rounds. In the Forum area, set up that morning for a buffet-style breakfast, he was reassured to see buyers and exhibitors wandering in for coffee, getting ready for a big day. All was well. But then he spotted something that he'd never seen at the Mart before: Over in one corner a line was forming, already beginning to snake around the room. As common as lines are in other parts of the commercial universe, it was an odd sight here in the vastness of the Mart, like plankton queuing up at the mouth of a whale.

Hare wandered over with the intention of disabusing his guests of the notion that their line into the exhibition hall, which was scheduled to open soon, was really necessary. The line turned out to be composed of retailers hoping to get a first crack at the booth of Ty Inc., manufacturers of Beanie Babies.

It was a reminder to Hare that the Denver Merchandise Mart lives or dies on the human need for personal, one-on-one contact. And that, while many of the mart's coequals in other U.S. cities have been shrinking, the Denver mart, more than merely surviving, is thriving, with '99 revenue of $14 million.

"It's a people thing," said Hare, who pointed out that Beanie Babies, like all the other merchandise featured in the Mart, can be ordered by phone, fax or Internet. Electronic commerce may be a great thing, he allowed, but "people still want to meet a real person, touch the merchandise, squeeze the stuffed bear for themselves."

Fashion-driven industries with rapidly changing product lines, such as the ephemeral (and therefore collectible) Beanie Babies, are one of the chief reasons the world still needs merchandise marts.

The Denver Merchandise Mart since 1973 has been regional landlord to manufacturers' showrooms, and host to trade shows and exhibitions. Occupying two city blocks northeast of the juncture of I-25 and 58th Avenue, the complex is as big as it is plain, a labyrinth of huge...