Expansion of IKEA Round Rock

21 Oct '11

3 min read

IKEA, the world's leading home furnishings retailer, announced plans to expand its Central Texas store in Round Rock. As a result of this work, IKEA Round Rock, which opened November 2006 as 252,000 square feet in size, will grow nearly 54,000 SF to the new size of approximately 306,000 SF. Construction activity will begin this month, with an expected completion in Summer 2012. The store will remain open and operational during construction, maintaining its product offering.

The project will include extending the self-serve furniture area (where shoppers collect flat-packed furniture to take home on the same day), relocating customer service functions to the newly built part of the store, and constructing a three-level parking structure to offset spaces eliminated by converting the northwest section of the parking lot into building. (In the end, there still will be approximately 1,200 parking spaces available on site.) This extension will blend into the existing structure so the store can maintain the unique architectural design for which IKEA stores are known worldwide.

“IKEA is thrilled with the success of IKEA Round Rock. But, as its customer base and sales continue to grow – along with the product assortment we offer – the size of the store's warehouse capacity now is less than ideal,” said Gerd Diewald, store manager. “Extending the store's self-serve furniture area so it can hold more products will allow us to improve the shopping experience, to meet our customers' needs more easily, and to enhance our ability to keep lowering prices.” Increased goods availability and the opportunity for the store to inventory more stock will result in transport savings continually passed on to customers.

For less than a year, IKEA Round Rock will undergo phased implementation of a reconfigured Self-Serve Furniture Area, a larger and moved 'As-Is' section, and shifted customer service areas such as Furniture Pick-Up and Home Delivery. During construction and build-up, some sales areas will be temporarily reduced, relocated, re-merchandised and re-routed, but the product selection will remain available onsite. The Exit Bistro and Swedish Foodmarket will stay in its current location, while six new checkouts will be added to the 20 existing ones. Ultimately, the store's warehouse will increase from 64,000 SF to 118,000 SF.

IKEA aims to minimize any disruption or inconvenience to customers during the construction of the building's extension and the parking structure. “We recognize this project may require flexibility by our customers, but we are confident the result will be an enhanced IKEA shopping experience,” Diewald added.

Located 20 miles north of Austin on 21.5 acres along Interstate Highway 35 at University Boulevard, the 252,000-SF IKEA Round Rock opened November 2006. In addition to 10,000 exclusively designed items, IKEA Round Rock presents 41 different room-settings, three model home interiors, a supervisedchildren's play area, and a 250-seat restaurant serving Swedish specialties such as meatballs with lingonberries and Gravad Lax plates, as well as American dishes.

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