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Ikea Memphis put on a dizzying display of construction Monday, with cascading sparks of welding, rumbling of dump trucks, and the lifting and fastening of Ikea-blue wall panels all to the pungent aroma of fresh asphalt.

The installation of those four-inch thick, insulated wall panels in the retailer's signature color is a Ikea's version of a construction topping-out milestone.
The popular retailer of modestly priced, modern furniture issued a press release Monday and gave media tours to mark the occasion.

Linkous Construction started work in December on the $64 million, 271,000-square-foot store and remains on pace to complete the building late this fall, Ikea spokesman Joseph Roth said.

The store is rising on 35 acres along I-40, west of Germantown Parkway and behind Costco.

The Memphis store will employ 225 people and pay an average $41,000 in salaries and benefits. Jobs will be available in home furnishings sales, interior decoration, customer service, safety and security, cashiers, maintenance, goods flow, receiving, warehouse and stock replenishment.

The company should start posting next month on its website -- IKEA-USA.com -- management-level jobs openings, Roth said. The rest of the jobs will be posted this summer.

The building itself has two parts. The 43-foot-tall western half is further along and is already getting its blue walls. That space will serve as a self-serve, customer accessible warehouse with some displays.

Construction workers were still building the steel structure Monday for the shorter, eastern half, which will house the showroom and marketplace with cooking, lighting and textile home accessories. That eastern half also will house the 300-seat restaurant.

Memphis will claim Tennessee's first Ikea. The closest stores are in Atlanta; Frisco, Texas; and St. Louis. Ikea opens just a few stores a year in the U.S. and 20 worldwide.

The Economic Development Growth Engine (EDGE) board last fall granted Ikea property tax breaks that could save the company nearly $11 million over as many as 12.5 years.

Lars Petersson, Ikea U.S. president, said of the Memphis site in the company release, “We hope to be enclosed fully within several months, and cannot wait to begin transforming the building’s interior to look like an Ikea store as well. We know there are many customers in the area who are excited for us to open, including more than 50,000 who currently are driving great distances to shop at our stores.”

Ikea Memphis will offer about 10,000 "exclusively designed'' products, 50 room settings, three model home interiors, a supervised play area for children, and the large restaurant offering Swedish fare such as meatballs with lingonberries and salmon plates as well as American dishes.

 

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I couldn't believe IKEA chose Memphis over Nashville for the store.  Middle TN/Central KY has 3.5 million residents and far more retail traffic. 

Memphis has an economy whose cash is spent on crack cocaine, the TN Lottery and at the casinos in Tunica.  Where will the $ come from to buy IKEA stuff?

On the other hand, Memphis is cheaper to build in with flat land and no rock.  And the stupid City Council is willing to give almost a $ million per year in tax dodges to IKEA.  I'm surprised they have the $ to give away anything to IKEA after spending $105 million in borrowed money to recondition a worn out Pyramid for Bass Pro Shop to come in and spend $30 million on putting in a store.

The area that they are building in is really so far out of Memphis that it doesn't really seem to be Memphis and they can also pull on customers from the Jackson Tennessee area.  Jackson is a quite large area itself and a pretty nice town also.

That said I, too, believe that Nashville would have been more of the type market that IKEA would have  chosen first but then IKEA isn't your normal store.  I got acquainted with IKEA from when I lived in the Atlanta area.  I always liked going through the IKEA store as it was so totally different a shopping experience from other stores and they had some pretty interesting things. 

Their kitchen and room designs were always very neat and practical designs as well as functionally useful but they were always a bit compartmental and "new-age" for me.  It may come from their European inclined designs and focus but as many have alluded to also a home build it type project.  We just got our granddaughter a desk and some bedroom furniture and at least the directions were well laid out and complete but I feel that they could make it that much easier, for the buyer and assembler, if they labeled each part with a sticker but as it was I was able to figure it out fairly easily.

I don't know when they will be opening the store but it will be about a 3 hour drive, from, and to, the Florence area so could make a nice single day trip.

Bamaman1 posted:

I couldn't believe IKEA chose Memphis over Nashville for the store.  Middle TN/Central KY has 3.5 million residents and far more retail traffic. 

Memphis has an economy whose cash is spent on crack cocaine, the TN Lottery and at the casinos in Tunica.  Where will the $ come from to buy IKEA stuff?

On the other hand, Memphis is cheaper to build in with flat land and no rock.  And the stupid City Council is willing to give almost a $ million per year in tax dodges to IKEA.  I'm surprised they have the $ to give away anything to IKEA after spending $105 million in borrowed money to recondition a worn out Pyramid for Bass Pro Shop to come in and spend $30 million on putting in a store.

Memphis is foregoing the million dollars annually, not paying it out.

direstraits posted:
Bamaman1 posted:

I couldn't believe IKEA chose Memphis over Nashville for the store.  Middle TN/Central KY has 3.5 million residents and far more retail traffic. 

Memphis has an economy whose cash is spent on crack cocaine, the TN Lottery and at the casinos in Tunica.  Where will the $ come from to buy IKEA stuff?

On the other hand, Memphis is cheaper to build in with flat land and no rock.  And the stupid City Council is willing to give almost a $ million per year in tax dodges to IKEA.  I'm surprised they have the $ to give away anything to IKEA after spending $105 million in borrowed money to recondition a worn out Pyramid for Bass Pro Shop to come in and spend $30 million on putting in a store.

Memphis is foregoing the million dollars annually, not paying it out.

I thought Nashville was a better choice also. The out lying area
has always pulled consumers in, there's more Christmas shoppers
from Missouri, middle TN, Ark and Miss than locally.
 
The smart move, Tanger outlets built just across the Shelby
county line in Miss.

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