BLOOMINGTON, Minn. (AP) Home furnishings retailer Ikea plans to open a 330,000-sq.-ft. store here in the summer of 2004 as an anchor for the second phase of the Mall of America.
The chain hopes to begin construction by June on the two-story store that will be just north of the megamall.
The project will cost about $60 million to $70 million, said Brad Prevost, Ikea’s real estate manager for the Midwest.
“The Mall of America is a juggernaut in the Twin Cities. It is a pure retail destination. It’s a good match for Ikea,” Prevost said.
The world’s largest furniture retailer has been scouting the Twin Cities area for years, looking at sites in Bloomington, Maple Grove and Woodbury. Although Ikea usually is a major attraction on its own, the retailer liked the proximity of the mall, which is visited by more than 40 million people a year.
And Mall of America officials certainly were smitten with landing Ikea as a high-profile launch to their long-anticipated second phase.
“This is definitely a strong win for Mall of America for them to come here,” said mall spokeswoman Monica Davis. “We think it is the right partnership.”
Mall of America co-owner Simon Property Group Inc., a shopping center giant based in Indianapolis, has the rights to develop as much as 5 million sq. ft. of space on the 42-acre former Met Center site.
The Ikea store would occupy roughly the western third of that property on 15 acres that the retailer would purchase from Simon.
Simon has not divulged details — or a specific timetable — for the rest of the megamall’s second phase, other than to say the development will occur in stages and could include retail, hotels, restaurants, a performing arts venue and fitness center.
The goal is to `”complement Mall of America, not duplicate Mall of America,” Davis said. For example, trendy home decor anchor Ikea is quite different than the original mall’s traditional department store anchors: Bloomingdale’s, Macy’s, Nordstrom and Sears.
The Mall of America, the nation’s largest retail and entertainment complex, opened in 1992 with about 2.5 million sq. ft. of retail space.
This year, Ikea has embarked on a North American expansion that will add 50 stores in the United States and Canada over the next decade. The Twin Cities and Boston will be the first new markets for the retailer since it entered California’s Bay Area three years ago.
The 60-year-old chain, which is based in Sweden, opened its first U.S. store in 1985. The company has more than 175 locations in 31 countries, including 15 stores in the United States. Its closest to the Twin Cities is a store in suburban Chicago that opened in 1998.
The privately held retailer —known for its massive blue-and-yellow metal-adorned stores — had total sales of $10.8 billion for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31. Its North American stores contribute 17 percent of its sales, compared with 80 percent in Europe and 3 percent in Asia.
