Ikea skips Triangle for Charlotte store

First outlet in Carolinas for Swedish furniture mecca

Triangle Ikea fans got half their wish Wednesday.

The Swedish seller of cheap, modern furniture announced plans for its first store in the Carolinas, but it will be in Charlotte. It will open in two years.

Company spokesman Joseph Roth said the Charlotte area has a slightly higher population, so it will get the store.

"We need close to 2 million people to support just one store, and the Research Triangle area is not quite there," he said.

The Triangle has about 1.2 million residents, according to the U.S. Census.

The Triangle isn't out of the running, Roth said. Several other states, including Illinois, Texas, California and Pennsylvania, have multiple Ikea stores.

"We'll get a very strong sense of how many customers come from the Raleigh-Durham area, and you never know what will happen," he said.

Ikea is best known for its huge stores and dizzying array of inexpensive but stylish home goods and furniture. The stores use bright colors and full furnished rooms to give shoppers an idea of how the items would look in their homes. Adding to the store's chic-factor are the Scandinavian names attached to just about every item: At Target you buy a television stand. At Ikea you buy a Leksvik.

The 345,000-square-foot Charlotte store -- almost equal to two Super Wal-Marts -- will be on the northeastern corner of Interstate 85 and City Boulevard. It will employ 400 people.

It will feature nearly 10,000 items, a children's play area and a 300-seat restaurant serving Swedish fare.

Construction could begin this summer, and the projected opening is spring 2009.

Triangle recruiting efforts

Triangle Ikea loyalists have wooed the retailer for more than a year, with more than 3,100 people signing an online petition pleading for a store. Many drive to the store in Atlanta and the one in Woodbridge, Va., the closest to the Triangle at about four hours away.

Durham resident Elaheh Ahrens also collected 3,000 signatures on a paper petition. She was disappointed Ikea picked Charlotte but was most upset to hear the new store won't open until 2009.

"I don't care Charlotte, Raleigh-Durham, that's fantastic," she said. "But we need it now."

Such devotion doesn't worry Triangle-area furniture retailers such as Charles Heavner of Heavner Furniture Market, because Ikea sells mostly furniture that customers must assemble themselves. Heavner Furniture Market has locations in Raleigh and Smithfield.

"They're just real specialized," he said. "Most of it's in a box. It's a niche."

But Ikea may be more of a threat because North Carolina's furniture industry is so competitive, said Stan Lisle, who studies the North Carolina retail landscape and is president of Cary brokerage firm Retail Rep.

"People drive to D.C. to shop at Ikea," he said. "Charlotte is half the distance. There's some kind of relationship between that distance and the number of people who will make the trip."

Ikea's drawing power will have the ability to hurt sales of retailers throughout the state, Lisle said. Even using a conservative estimate of $300 a square foot, the Charlotte store would make more than $100 million in annual sales. "It's got to come out of somewhere," he said.

Marshal Cohen, chief retail analyst for the NPD Group, a research firm in Port Washington, N.Y., said he thinks mass merchandisers such as Wal-Mart and Target will be hardest hit. He also said Ikea shoppers will continue to shop their local stores because a trip to Ikea will be a special outing.

"Does it become a shopping excursion? Absolutely, yes," he said. "It's going to be a destination place, but it will be a destination place with a lot less frequency of visits."

When the Charlotte store does open, it will be Ikea's fourth store in the Southeast. The company's expansion plans usually include three to five new U.S. stores a year. It's clear from its recent actions that growth in the Southeast is a priority.

Ikea is building a distribution center in Savannah, Ga., and has announced plans for its first U.S. furniture manufacturing facility in Danville, Va., about 85 miles from Raleigh.

The first Southeast store opened in Atlanta in 2005, and two more are slated to open in Florida this year.

Ikea also said Wednesday that the 138 acres surrounding its new store will be developed into a shopping center.

"This will turn into a major shopping destination," Roth said.