By the end of spring, the foundation will be finished. This summer, the walls will go up. The building will be complete by autumn.
And by this time next year, IKEA will be open in Draper.
The Sweden-based home furnishing retailer broke ground Tuesday on what will be its first store in Utah, located to the north and west of I-15 and Bangerter Highway. When complete, the 310,000-square-foot store will employ 300 to 400 workers, house 10,000 items and include 50 room settings, three complete home displays, a restaurant and bistro.
"Today's event is proof that together we can truly accomplish great things," said Doug Greenholz, real estate manager for IKEA. "Not only that, but we're doing it on schedule."
The 22.5-acre parcel has been purchased, Greenholz said. The permits have been secured and finalized with Draper city. And come spring 2007, Greenholz said, IKEA expects to be ready to open its 30th store in North America.
Which comes as welcome news for Draper and the state of Utah, according to David Baird, economic development director for Draper.
"Today is a wonderful milestone in this great opportunity for Draper city," Baird said. "Since we have announced that IKEA Draper will be opening in spring of 2007, it's been an immediate barometer of success for the city. It legitimizes Draper as a major retail destination for products and services that are not available in any other spot along the Wasatch Front."
Since IKEA announced in November that it planned to open in Draper, Baird said the city has received requests for information from other retailers — some of whom are looking to expand their presence in Utah, but others who would be new to the market. Baird declined to specify which retailers had inquired or whether any had decided to locate stores there.
However, he said, "I believe that the future looks very, very bright for this entire region.
"The beauty of this is that this is not necessarily the stealing of retail dollars from adjoining municipalities. This is a super-regional drop. We anticipate that people will be coming from Wyoming, Idaho, Colorado, even Las Vegas, just to get here. So we aim to try to provide everybody with a hospitable, wonderful experience when they visit here and make sure that they patronize our other services."
IKEA purchased a total of 40 acres. Those not used by the store will be developed, the company said, "as complementary retail and restaurant uses."
IKEA is one of the few retailers that draws customers from a multistate region to its stores. Natalie Wold, who is building a home in Herriman, says she makes annual trips from Utah to California to shop at IKEA's Los Angeles-area stores and has spread her love of IKEA to several friends in Utah County, who now also make regular pilgrimages to its California stores.
"I love it," Wold said. "They have a lot of solutions for small spaces and storage. I like their clean lines and modern look. When I moved here (from England), I found that so many things look the same. So I love their bright colors, I love their floating shelves and their storage containers. In my last house — we're building a new one now — but in my last house, you could go into a room and just know that it was an IKEA room.
"And it's so inexpensive," Wold said. "You can buy really cool-looking things for Wal-Mart prices. I do wonder how it will affect other furniture stores, though. You'll have a choice, you know, and their prices are so low. I wonder how others will compete."
Still, Wold said she will be an enthusiastic IKEA customer — and possibly more — when its doors open next year.
"I think I'll go there all the time. I'll probably get a job there, to be honest," Wold said, citing the company's employee discounts and benefits program (which extends to 20-hour-per-week workers as well as full-time employees).
IKEA currently operates 230 stores in 33 countries, including 27 in the United States. In addition to the Draper location, other recently announced stores include Brooklyn, N.Y.; Sunrise, Fla.; and Round Rock, Texas. The company was founded in 1943 by Ingvar Kamprad.
E-mail: jnii@desnews.com