Mar 24 2014
IKEA, the world’s leading home furnishings retailer, today announced that contractors are hired for its future St. Louis store. Pending remaining approvals, this progress allows the project to continue on track for site demolition in a couple of months, a groundbreaking during Summer 2014 and a store opening in Fall 2015, increasing the Swedish retailer’s presence in the Midwestern United States.
Until the store opens in Fall 2015, customers can shop at the closest IKEA stores: the Chicago-area IKEA Bolingbrook and IKEA Schaumburg; or online at IKEA-USA.com. Additionally, a Kansas City-area store is under construction and on track to open Fall 2014 in Merriam, KS.
IKEA has chosen S. M. Wilson & Co. to serve as Construction Manager for the site work and store development. One of the largest such companies in the area, S. M. Wilson was founded in St. Louis in 1921, as a full-service construction management, design/build and general contracting firm. Other St. Louis-area firms involved with this IKEA project include: Stock & Associates, civil engineer; BLA, traffic consultants; SCI Engineering, Inc., testing and inspection services; Husch & Blackwell for local land use and real estate transaction counsel; real estate brokerage Pace Properties, site selection support; and Cortex for acquiring the land. Atlanta-based GreenbergFarrow is the project architect. IKEA also is working with Habitat for Humanity St. Louis and other organizations to recycle and salvage as much of the existing buildings’ equipment, materials, and parts as possible.
“We are glad plans continue to be on track to open our IKEA St. Louis store,” said Rob Olson, IKEA U.S. CFO. “This store would provide a more conveniently located IKEA shopping experience for current and potential customers from Eastern Missouri, Southern Illinois and beyond, strengthening the IKEA presence in the Midwestern U.S.”
IKEA St. Louis would feature nearly 10,000 exclusively designed items, 50 inspirational room-settings, three model home interiors, a supervised children’s play area, and a 450-seat restaurant serving Swedish specialties such as meatballs with lingonberries and salmon plates, as well as American dishes. Other family-friendly features include a ‘Children’s IKEA’ area in the Showroom, baby care rooms, play areas throughout the store, and preferred parking. In addition to the more than 500 jobs that are expected to be created during the construction phase, approximately 300 coworkers would join the IKEA family when the new store opens. IKEA St. Louis also would provide significant annual sales and property tax revenue for local governments and schools.
Located in Midtown St. Louis, the 380,000-square-foot proposed IKEA store, and 1,300 parking spaces, will be built along the northern side of Interstate-64 near Vandeventer Avenue on nearly 21 acres in the Cortex Innovation District, a vibrant technology community created to commercialize the benefits of university and corporate research in St. Louis. Store plans reflect the same unique architectural design for which IKEA stores are known worldwide. IKEA also will evaluate potential on-site power generation to complement its current U.S. goal of renewable energy presence at nearly 90% of its U.S. locations.
Source: http://www.ikea.com/