Ikea (Kansas City, St. Louis, Springfield: 2013, house, buy)

[DinsdalePirahna]

At worse, IKEA is a great place to get decorating ideas.
They do have a lot of quality products and furniture although they have a reputation for cheap disposables.

I'm lucky enough to have an IKEA about 7 miles from home, and three IKEAS within 30 miles.

My sister drives 4 hours from Albany, NY to NJ. People make the trip (just like people make the trip to the Bass Pro Shop in Springfield). Put one in Columbia and it will be a destination store accessible to St. Louis and KC.

[GraniteStater]

Originally Posted by DinsdalePirahna

At worse, IKEA is a great place to get decorating ideas.
They do have a lot of quality products and furniture although they have a reputation for cheap disposables.

I'm lucky enough to have an IKEA about 7 miles from home, and three IKEAS within 30 miles.

My sister drives 4 hours from Albany, NY to NJ. People make the trip (just like people make the trip to the Bass Pro Shop in Springfield). Put one in Columbia and it will be a destination store accessible to St. Louis and KC.

IKEA has a very poor sustainability record and I will not shop there. All the supporting info is online.

[xenokc]

STL paper talks about more rumors too. Ikea still says they have no plans to expand this year but Trader Joes consistently said that too until officially announcing KC.

Yet another Ikea rumor surfaces in St. Louis

For KC, the Ikea official said something a little different...

"Ikea’s Roth said “we have not committed to a time frame for the Kansas City area.”

[jason87x]

Afaik, the business journal is respectable, then again my dad used to write for them. Assuming this rumor has some truth to it, it will likely take a couple years at least for IKEA to actually be built there. It's just like how TJs took quite awhile here. Merriam made a dumb gamble destroying half their town for more retail when there is a THRIVING strip mall across the street, to build a new one anchored by Circuit City *gasp* and now there are NO tenants.

Another thing would be logistics. From what I've seen, IKEA stores are massive, like the size of NFM almost, I'm thinking of the one on 121 in Frisco TX. That lot seems too small for some reason, plus grading would be a concern, as it was a huge slope.

[aragx6]

^I've only been to NFM a couple of times, but if memory serves me at all correctly I'm pretty sure Ikea's are actually bigger than NFM.

[pioneer88]

If so, that is huge!

KCK Nebraska Furniture Mart is 450,000 sq ft of retail space.

Nebraska Furniture Mart - Kansas City Store

[kcmo]

Originally Posted by aragx6

^I've only been to NFM a couple of times, but if memory serves me at all correctly I'm pretty sure Ikea's are actually bigger than NFM.

Not really. IKEAs are set up like a maze. You have to walk a mile in the places and zigzag all over the place and most are two levels of maze. NFM is huge. It's a least as big as an IKEA. Probably a little bigger (showroom).

I don't get the hate for IKEA though. They serve a purpose and a market. NFM sells crap too, you just pay more for it. It's all crap.

Even if you are not a college student etc, IKEA has quite a bit of things that come in handy that are hard to find elsewhere. NFM is a nicer store though. I'm surprised they are not a national phenomenon that every city wants. It's nice to have so much in one showroom to at least get ideas although NFM has very little modern and contemporary stuff.

[aragx6]

Wow NFM is that big? I don't think the Ikea's I've been to have been quite that large, but Wikipedia does say their flagship store is 55,200 square meters which is like 600k sq/ft.

edit: Ok I found an article in the Chicago trib from a few years back that says the Bolingbrook location is only 310k sq/ft.

[pioneer88]

Either way, it would be a massive building.

[xenokc]

The Star's retail/restaurant reporter (ahem, blogger) Joyce Smith didn't mention Ikea in her Tue column today and she did look into it. Unless KCBJ knows something she doesn't, they are just perpetuating rumors (and I suppose I did too).