To combat rising land prices and the shrinking availability of larger lots, more retailers are moving toward two-story stores.

Already, REI, Barnes & Noble, Dick's Sporting Goods and Kohl's have local, two-story locations. Other chains, including Harris Teeter and Chick-fil-A, are signing on with similar projects.

Of course, companies have built multifloor buildings for years, especially department stores.

But there has been a resurgence in interest as companies known for their sprawling stores and miles of parking spaces try to cram into smaller urban settings.

"A lot of the retailers are rediscovering it," said Ed Nakfoor, an independent retail consultant from Birmingham, Mich. "They're adopting this format to fit their current needs."

The Triangle is a long way from being a megalopolis, yet there are enough pressures on developers to make them seriously consider a two-floor design.

Land values leap

Real estate values shot up 43 percent on average in just the past eight years, said Emmett Curl, Wake County's revenue director.

Commercial land -- both undeveloped lots and the land sitting under existing buildings -- has increased in value by about 150 percent since 2000, he said. Downtown, land values have roughly tripled.

"We're beginning to come up in tune with other like and similar areas with similar demographics," Curl said. "We look just like Atlanta did 30 years ago."

Developers in larger areas such as Atlanta find themselves in situations where residential development is extremely dense, and there's not enough space for even a grocery market.

Retailing giants known for their "big box" stores are finding ways to put multifloor stores into smaller vertical spaces.

Home Depot has multilevel locations in Manhattan, Chicago and Vancouver. Target and Costco have them, too. Target and Home Depot teamed up in Charlotte for a two-story project featuring both stores.

Even Wal-Mart, whose traditional one-floor supercenter tops 200,000 square feet, has a handful of multilevel locations and is planning more.

"If we have to look at some different layouts in order to fit in the space, then we definitely do that," said Home Depot spokeswoman Sarah Molinari.

"It's just a matter of making it work somewhere where we find a need."

Urban developments also are popular right now, because they provide a different feel, said Stan Lisle, president of Retail Rep, a real estate firm in Cary.

"Both city planners and developers are encouraging these more urban kind of projects that look more dense, less like a shopping center and less like a big parking field," he said.

All of those things have combined to bring more two-story retail to the Triangle.

Kohl's wanted to build a store in Apex next to the popular Beaver Creek Commons shopping center. But the only land was a nine-acre lot. By going to two floors, Kohl's could fit a 102,899-square-foot store onto the site.

By comparison, the one-story Kohl's in Garner is on nearly 12 acres and is just shy of 90,000 square feet.

"They basically had to do a two-story building in order to fit on that site," said Apex Planning Director Dianne Khin. "I think the benefit to the town is that the building is a little more interesting and attractive than a regular Kohl's. And it also freed up more open space around it, so it's not just concrete."

In a similar situation in Raleigh, Chick-fil-A is planning its first two-story restaurant.

For now, the 6,000-square-foot store headed for the Cameron Village shopping center is the only one the company has planned. Still in the preliminary stages of planning and permitting, the company hopes the restaurant, in the old Village Eye Care building on Cameron Street across from the Harris Teeter, may open in early 2009.

"When you're doing something that's this much of a departure from what you've been doing, there's a certain amount of risk," said John Featherston, senior director of real estate.

Though Featherston said Chick-fil-A was not using the Raleigh location as a prototype for two-story development, he said he sees it as good preparation for the future .

"We've got to be able to execute this well," he said. "We've got to figure out how to do this, or we're going to miss being part of [people's] lives."

One-story still popular

Of course, there's a reason most retailers have stuck with a one-floor model for so long.

Two-floor stores are more expensive to build because of the extra materials and additional infrastructure, such as putting in elevators and escalators.

Then there are other issues a two-story building can cause.

"We have to have more staff," said Bethany Nielson, spokeswoman for REI. The outdoors retailer has 96 stores, about half of which have two floors.

"We have to make sure that there are enough employees to cover the whole floor. In a one-story store, it's easier to see different areas."

And making the move to two-story development requires some investment of time and money to redesign the store's layout.

Chick-fil-A's planned Cameron Village store required a new design as well as logistics, such as figuring out how to get customers and their food safely from the counter on the first floor to the dining area on the second.

"We have spent significantly more than any other project," Featherston said. "It's not like we can pull off-the-shelf drawings of anything else."

Still, the move is becoming increasingly necessary, Raleigh developer John Kane said.

Kane's North Hills project contains a two-story REI store, and his new North Hills East development will feature the area's first two-story Harris Teeter.

"You wouldn't have seen much of that 10 years ago," he said. "It's just more vertical in nature. Everything we're doing on the east side of Six Forks [Road] is more vertical. ... Land has gotten very expensive, and when you have to pay more for the land, you have to put more density on it."

Experts approve

For their part, city planners and developers like the new look.

"We'd welcome two-story retail really anywhere retail is allowed," said Khin, the Apex planning director.

"I think it's something that's different, and I think it would be good to see."

Still, Mitchell Silver, Raleigh planning director, said he doesn't see it as an overwhelming trend.

"It only works if it's a single use, like a Barnes & Noble, where it's one user on two floors," Silver said. "I think we'll see it in limited places. ... But it's not a bad thing."