Historically, most retail businesses in Norfolk used to be on the south side of town. Longtime locals might associate old shopping habits with trips to areas around the Sunset Plaza mall.
That trend has largely shifted north over the years, while commercial lots have begun to repurpose old retail spaces like Shopko and OfficeMax, now Courtesy Ford and Cornhusker Nissan, respectively. And, in between them, an interesting juxtaposition — TC Amish Home.
“Before this, there was nothing here in this area,” said Tim Deets, owner of TC Amish Home Furniture. “Shopko was there, and OfficeMax was there … so they built this (building). This (building) was really built and designed to have seven different businesses in it, and they were going to separate it. Well, that didn't work.”
Behind the scenes, Al Rajaee and his wife, Julie, were hard at work running Courtesy Ford, when a rumor came around about the old Shopko.
“My wife and I were laughing about it that, you know, that's just too big a place,” said Al Rajaee, owner of Courtesy Ford. “What would we do with it? And as we started looking for land in this area, we discovered there wasn't a whole lot of spaces for development. So that's when we decided to go ahead and take a leap of faith and start developing the Ford store.”
The old location, previously on the southeast corner of Fifth Street and Madison Avenue, was sold, and the Rajaees now run the fully remodeled Courtesy Ford at 2005 Krenzien Drive. With the success of the move, they started thinking about the benefits of moving their Nissan dealership as well.
“As we opened and we started working here, we always said, ‘You know it would be nice someday to maybe move our Nissan store, because our Nissan store was having the same challenge of being landlocked,’ ” he said. “There was no space for us to grow. So, when the OfficeMax building became open, it was a natural deal for us to move there and do that development.”
Despite challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, Cornhusker Nissan completed development and officially opened for business at its new location last October.
In the middle of the two dealerships was a pocket of empty space.
“The developer that developed that had a different vision for it,” Rajaee said. “He was looking at it as broken up retail spaces … and he had the project completed for a couple of years, and he wasn't having any luck getting a tenant in that area.
“So we were able to purchase that from him, and then I approached Tim Deets and talked to him about potentially moving out here to occupy the space … and the rest is history.”
TC Amish Home, nestled in between the two dealerships, sells furniture hand-hewn by skilled Amish carpenters.
“Everything that's made comes out of Indiana and Ohio,” Deets said. “And we do business with about 120 different Amish families. So there's a lot we can do, and everything is customized.”
Deets has found that being a link between the two dealerships has provided business at TC Amish Home. As one spouse shops for a car, the other might wander over to the store and browse.
“Anytime there's traffic and you get noticed, that's helpful,” Deets said. “(It) may not help that day, you know, six months from now, a year from now. Hopefully they remember that they saw it here or they were in.
“And we get people from the car dealerships that are getting oil changes and things like that. The women generally will come over and just walk through. So yeah, there's no question that's helpful.”
As for future development of the area, Rajaee spoke of an auto glass shop planning to put down roots, just one of many businesses seeing potential in the area.
“So now overall, we have created a destination for Northeast Nebraska,” Rajaee said. “So there are now three car dealerships on this side of town, all kind of put together in a row.
“So, you know, if you come into town and you want to do car shopping, this is the first place you would go to.”
