Ikea plans 3rd Texas unit
By Clint Engel -- Furniture Today, August 29, 2005
Round Rock, Texas — Ikea has announced plans for its third Texas store here and its first in the Austin area.
The Top 100 Sweden-based chain said it will build a 252,000-square-foot showroom in this suburb north of Austin in the spring of 2007, pending government approvals and the purchase of 21.5 acres for the project at the southeastern corner of I-35 and Chandler Road.
Earlier this month, it opened a Dallas-area store in Frisco, Texas, and last year it moved its Houston store to a new showroom.
The Austin-area store will reflect Ikea's familiar architecture and features. The store is part of the retailer's aggressive plan to open five new U.S. stores a year for the next several years.
Among the features: nearly 10,000 items for the home, from furniture, lighting and accessories to cookware and full kitchens; four model homes furnished with particular family profiles in mind; a supervised children's play area and a 250-seat restaurant.
"We are thrilled about entering central Texas at this site in Round Rock where we can complement our Texas presence," said Doug Greenholz, Ikea's real estate manager.
Ikea, which has more than 215 stores in 33 countries, including 24 U.S. showrooms, doesn't release investment figures or store-specific sales projections. Furniture/Today estimates that furniture, bedding and accessories sales at 21 U.S. stores jumped about 13% to $1.075 billion for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2004.
The company has been running shy of its five-stores-a-year goal, having opened three stores last fiscal year and three for the just-ending fiscal year (in Tempe, Ariz., Atlanta and Frisco), but it continues to push forward.
Four more showrooms are in the works for the next fiscal year — a second Chicago-area store in Bolingbrook, Ill., its first Boston—area store opening this fall, a store in West Sacramento, Calif., to open next spring, and one in Canton, Mich., planned for next summer. Other announced locations include Dublin, Calif., to open in fall 2006, and Brooklyn, N.Y., with no opening date set.
Joseph Roth, Ikea North America's director of expansion public affairs, recently identified Austin as a potential new market for the retailer. He said that in addition to Austin, all of the top 35 media markets where Ikea doesn't already have stores are candidates for new stores, including Charlotte, N.C., Cleveland, Cincinnati and Columbus, Ohio, Denver, St. Louis and Portland, Ore.
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