Anxiously awaiting IKEA store’s arrival?

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 08/12/2011 (5302 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When IKEA’s newest store opened in Ottawa on Wednesday, the first person through the doors guaranteed her spot in line by queuing up four days earlier.

How did she manage that? She lived in a box, naturally.

That kind of behaviour might seem crazy to many of us but it’s not all that unusual for fans of the iconic furniture retailer — even when you realize Ottawa already had an IKEA store on the other side of town.

So, after so many years of pent-up demand for IKEA in Winnipeg, are we also going to hop on the crazy train when it opens its first location here next fall? You bet your Billy bookcase we will.

Winnipeggers have gone bananas prior to the ribbon cuttings for Old Navy, Forever 21 and even The Bay’s Polo Park location in the past.

So, can you imagine what we’ll do when IKEA finally arrives, particularly after it maintained for more than a decade this town wasn’t big enough to sustain a bricks and mortar store selling Oslo beds, Dinera tableware and Effektiv office furniture.

“That’s the power of IKEA and why they’re such a great retailer,” said Robert Warren, a marketing professor at the I.H. Asper School of Business at the University of Manitoba. “They have absolutely rabid fans.

“They’ve created this entire community around the store. It’s a community of people who love the product, who are into putting it together themselves because it gives them a stronger sense of ownership and who can’t wait for a new design or season to come along because the IKEA brand is such an integral part of their lives and how they define themselves.”

John Winter, a Toronto-based retail analyst, said in addition to its low prices, IKEA also attracts people for the experience of shopping at its stores.

“The restaurant is serving Swedish meatballs and each thing has a funny little name. Your table is called ‘Helga.’ People say, ‘I want Bjorn.’ “

The world’s largest furniture retailer recently announced plans to super-size the 350,000-square-foot store it originally announced for the southwest corner of Kenaston Boulevard and Sterling Lyon Parkway in 2009 by adding another 45,000 square feet.

That will make it the second-biggest IKEA location in Canada, trailing only the newly minted 427,000-square-foot outlet in Ottawa.

Warren said he expects police officers will be needed to direct traffic in and around IKEA’s site for up to a month following the grand opening.

“It will be gridlock. You’ll get dedicated customers and those who just want to take a look,” he said, adding he expects people to drive in from Saskatchewan and northwestern Ontario to get their furniture fix.

The IKEA store will be the first component of a 1.5-million-square-foot, potentially $400-million development on both sides of Sterling Lyon Parkway.

The largest component of the development will be the Seasons of Tuxedo mall, which has been touted as a more pedestrian-friendly concept than a traditional big-box development.

Michael Nozick, president of Fairweather Properties, which is developing the site, said he expects it will be “very, very, very, very busy.”

“They are busy anchors everywhere they open, the busiest,” he said.

geoff.kirbyson@freepress.mb.ca