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Furniture retailer is coming to East Market

Design Within Reach plans to lease 15,000 square feet at East Market, the mixed-use complex now under construction at Market Street between 11th and 12th Streets, marking the furniture retailer's return to Philadelphia after six years.

Design Within Reach plans to lease 15,000 square feet at East Market, the mixed-use complex now under construction at Market Street between 11th and 12th Streets, marking the furniture retailer's return to Philadelphia after six years.

Plans call for the store to open in early 2017 at the complex's 1100 Market St. building, the retailer and the developer, National Real Estate Development, said in a news release.

DWR will be the first non-food retailer to take space at the block-long development, and the first tenant at 1100 Market St. Mom's Organic Market already has been announced as a retail tenant for the adjacent former Family Court building at 34 S. 11th St., which is being renovated as part of the $500 million project.

Also opening at the former court building will be nine decorating and home-interiors merchants that previously had showrooms at the Marketplace Design Center on Market Street West.

DWR president John McPhee said the proximity to those merchants, which sell primarily to tradespeople such as designers and contractors, was a draw because sales to such customers make up as much as 30 percent of his company's business.

"This location just seemed to speak to us," McPhee said.

DWR left Philadelphia in 2010 during a cost-cutting effort that resulted in the shuttering of about half its stores nationwide. The company, which has since been acquired by furniture maker Herman Miller Inc., has begun reopening in larger spaces better able to showcase its inventory.

The location at East Market will be five times larger than its previous Philadelphia location near 17th and Walnut Streets.

jadelman@phillynews.com

215-854-2615@jacobadelman