IKEA Coming To Round Rock?
With a new IKEA opening in Frisco near Dallas on August 3rd, those of us who used to deplore navigating our way through the stoplights and speed traps of Hwy 71 and the traffic jams on I-10 to get to the Houston store will have another option in our quest for cheap utilitarian Swedish particle board.
And now a posting on Craigslist wonders if the trip may again be shortened if IKEA follows through on developing a new location on a property in Round Rock. Though earlier this year the company told the Austin American-Statesman it wouldn’t decide on a location until 2007 at the earliest, the Austin Business Journal reported in April that the company had signed a letter of intent for a location near I-35 and Chandler Road, a manufacturing plant once housing Johnson & Johnson. The site is near a new outlet mall that Simon Property Group plans to develop on the property.
However, IKEA is notoriously secretive about its development plans, and IKEA’s Joseph Roth told the ABJ that: “‘IKEA executives give the green light for about four new stores each year.’ Central Texas hasn’t gained that level of approval, he says, and the earliest a store in this area could move forward would be 2007.”
We can only hope that this goes through, because we need more LACK shelving units, STAT! And with IKEA expanding its Texas reach, will the Container Store be quaking in its boots?
Update: Austin Business Journal confirms that IKEA will open in Round Rock in 2007.
Yup, it’s official. Round Rock is set to join the Texas IKEA fraternity alongside its suburban brethren of Frisco and Katy.
No longer will I be forced to suffer the inconvenience of ordering furniture from the privacy of my home!
The Wife is more excited about this than she should be.
The Wife is way more excited about this than she should be.
My friend compared it to a Wal-Mart. Are IKEA stores any different than Wal-Mart–better or worse? They are still big box stores. The one bummer about it is now the stuff you buy at IKEA will seem less unique than when it was in Houston. Like “Oh yeah, Frank, I saw that at IKEA, too, and almost bought it.” Or, “I have that exact same LACK shelving.”
I’m almost torn between feelings on this topic. I love IKEA, but at the same time I’m gonna hate how much bustle its going to bring to/around my nieghborhood(I practically live down the street from the projected site).
Well I am a 29 year old male from The Netherlands and IKEA is very well-known in The Netherlands too! In fact… their head-office is even based in The Netherlands in Delft, near The Hague. This is due to the fact that in Holland companies only have to pay taxes once and they don’t need to pay taxes over the profits they make, as is needed in Sweden where companies this way need to pay taxes twice. Ikea right now has 12 stores in Holland, and 1 store is approx. 5 km away from my house in Hengelo (eastern part of The Netherlands). And IKEA said that The Netherlands would finally get a total of 16 IKEA-stores in this relatively small country. This might seem much for a country like The Netherlands, but based on the amount of households in 16 million people living here, 16 IKEA-stores is not too much, just fine. Earlier, meaning before August 2002, I always needed to take a trip of 1hour and 15 mins. to Arnhem to reach the nearast IKEA at that time, which is quite a trip for people in Holland. Now it is just a 15 mins. away. Of course, now many people in my region have stuff of IKEA. So this way IKEA-stuff might seem less special. But the convinience of having an IKEA now very close to your home is much more important than that. Need something of IKEA? Now it’s a short trip away! And their products are in-expensive and at very good price-quality-ratio. And much of their products are very handy in life too! Are they any different than Wal-Marts? Well… besides the Swedish names of their products, the design of their products is sometimes – if not very often – unique too! A design of products you perhaps won’t find at Wal-Marts.
I’m very excited about IKEA coming to central Texas, but as it was stated by someone else, the uniqueness won’t be as it is when you have to buy via internet or ‘travel’ out to Houston or Dallas in order to buy from them. Even though I’m in San Antonio, there’s a lot of people who know of IKEA (most of who I know happen to be military families who have traveled and experienced IKEA stores prior to moving here) and I hear a lot of people making plans to go there once it’s completed. But oh well, at least you have such a wide variety of products to choose from so I suppose I’m overthinking it… LOL!
IKEA is just as bad as Walmart because IKEA now has its furniture massproduced in CHINA! When are Americans and Texans gonna wake up. And of course the horde of automatons that will frequent my neighborhood will be annoying. Traffic will significantly increase in the area and with all the outlet stores going in I will cash in on my increasing landvalue and move.
i’ve been looking over the internet all day, i just want to know, if i have product that i want ikea to sell who do talk to and how do i go about it?
IKEA products are all designed in-house in Sweden.
We need an IKEA in NW San Antonio…. that would be an ideal location. NEar the i-10 and 1604 corridor.
Tons of furniture stores near there….but none with contemporary designs like IKEA. Or maybe a Eurway would be nice there as well.
Are you Kidding me??? IKEA is the best thing ever! Not only is it a great place to shop but they are also known as an awesome employer. Look at the IKEA website – Top 100 in Fortune Magazine plus Working Mother -I can’t wait for IKEA to come to Austin!