Furniture stores cozy up to Weld County market

Once a year or so, furniture tycoon Jake Jabs and some of his deputies will hire a helicopter and fly the Front Range from Fort Collins to Pueblo.

“We look for wherever they’re moving dirt – where the housing projects are going up,´ said Jabs, owner of American Furniture Warehouse.

About two years ago, the flyover gave Jabs and his managers a sense that there was a growing market for his goods in southwest Weld County. The result is a 520,000-square-foot behemoth that’s now under construction in Firestone and due to open this summer.

Jabs’ unscientific survey was recently backed up by hard…