Ikea Winnipeg | Completed

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From Tuesday's Winnipeg Sun:

Winnipeg is on IKEA's radar, says a prominent local property developer.

Sandy Shindleman says the retail real estate industry is buzzing that the Swedish furniture giant will open a Winnipeg store in 2009 or 2010.

Citing reliable sources from the International Council of Shopping Centre winter conference, Shindleman says Winnipeg is next or second-next for new stores coming to Canada -- in Halifax and Winnipeg.

"I think in that order," he added. "The industry's talking about the fact we're finally on the radar."

A company spokesman confirmed IKEA has expansion plans for Canada, but Winnipeg is not in them.


"It is just a rumour," Cass Hall said of talk of a new store here.

"For now we don't have any plans for Winnipeg we can discuss right now."

IKEA turns 30 this year and is growing as a company. Hall said among its first new moves in Canada will be to expand its Ottawa store.

Winnipeggers are some of the best and most loyal IKEA mail-order customers in Canada, yet have long felt inferior for not having a storefront outlet.

FEASIBILITY STUDY

Their hopes were raised when IKEA conducted a feasibility study a few years ago on the merits of doing business here. At the time, Winnipeg did not have the magical one-million population the company says on its website it requires.

Robert Warren, a retail professor at the University of Manitoba, doubts IKEA will open a store here. The city and its catchment area cannot support the size of big box -- about 200,000 square feet -- IKEA is building now, he said.

"That store has got to do $33 (million) or $35 million in sales," he said. "If you go to their website you will see they never go into a market of less than a million people ... unless they're coming up with some new format.

"I don't think they'd come here in a million years. It's not the first time I've heard 'reliable sources say.' "

But Warren admitted he could be wrong and suggested IKEA may be moving into second-tier markets the way major retailers Wal-Mart and Superstore have done. Both Halifax and Winnipeg are considered secondary retail markets, he said.

Shindleman, whose company counts retail giants such as Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Best Buy, Old Navy and Starbucks among its clients, acknowledges the news may be speculation right now, but believes IKEA will find a home here.

"I always knew it would happen, but I wondered if I would still be in business," he said. "I thought I might be retired."

The president of Shindico Realty Inc. said an IKEA store, which needs hectares of space for customer parking and highway access for deliveries, would likely set up shop in southeast or southwest Winnipeg.

"There's quite a few choices for them," he said, noting he'd be surprised "to see it opening before 2009."