Oak Creek IKEA seen as development catalyst
‘We landed ... an NBA or NFL franchise’
Oak Creek’s IKEA store will put southeastern Wisconsin on “the world stage” and is already attracting interest from other businesses that want to locate nearby, Mayor Dan Bukiewicz said.
Noting that the popular home furnishings retailer has only 44 stores in the United States, Bukiewicz, in a brief address to more than 100 people gathered Thursday at the construction site for the store’s groundbreaking ceremony, suggested that bringing IKEA to town was akin to adding a professional sports team to a community.
“We landed the equivalent of an NBA or NFL franchise right here in the city of Oak Creek,” Bukiewicz said. “It makes this area a destination, and that raises all boats. It’s going to raise all boats in Franklin, Oak Creek, Cudahy, South Milwaukee. It’s like dropping a pebble into a pond and watching the ripples go out.”
The 291,000-square-foot, one-story IKEA, being built just north of W. Drexel Ave. and west of I-94, is expected to open in summer 2018. It will be the first IKEA in Wisconsin.
“As IKEA comes in, I’m sure we’ll see other businesses dovetail onto them,” Bukiewicz said. “They’re going to grow, they’re going to spill over across 27th Street into Franklin and hopefully reignite the 27th Street corridor.”
Asked afterward whether Oak Creek is receiving inquiries from other business now that IKEA is coming, Bukiewicz said the city fields probably a phone call per week asking about the availability of land nearby.
“They are like a magnet drawing steel to it,” he said.
What types of businesses are interested?
“They are all over,” Bukiewicz said. “Anywhere from retail to lodging to food service. It’s just great. This is going to be a catalyst on the west side of I-94.”
Drexel Town Square, a bustling mixed-use development center in Oak Creek, is about 1 mile east of the IKEA site.
Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co., whose Franklin office campus is a half-mile west along S. 27th St., sold IKEA the 29-acre site for the store. The Milwaukee-based insurer still owns 147 acres in Oak Creek near the IKEA property.
Kevin Kennedy, who oversees Northwestern Mutual’s Milwaukee-area real estate investments, said Thursday the company is receiving interest in the land and will have a broker represent it for future deals.
The IKEA store, with its sig-
nature blue and yellow colors, will be highly visible along I-94 at what is the de facto gateway to Milwaukee County from the south.
Privately owned IKEA, which had global sales of about $37.6 billion in fiscal 2016 and $5.2 billion in U.S. sales, calculates it already has more than 210,000 customers from the Milwaukee area.
“We’re excited about building a store for them and for the countless new customers who have yet to experience the unique IKEA concept,” Joseph Roth, expansion public affairs manager for IKEA, said at Thursday’s
groundbreaking ceremony.
Roth said IKEA would be a good corporate citizen and employer. The store is expected to hire about 250 employees.
“IKEA does not open just anywhere, nor very often. But when we do, we make a commitment for the long term,” Roth said.
Founded in 1943 in Sweden, IKEA has more than 390 stores in 48 countries. Among its bestknown products is assemble-it-yourself furniture.
The Oak Creek store will feature almost 10,000 items and include three model home interiors, model room settings, a supervised children’s play area and a 300-seat restaurant serving specialties such as Swedish meatballs with lingonberries and salmon plates.
Liz Gabor Maier, real estate manager for IKEA U.S., said the store is expected to draw customers from throughout Wisconsin. But she noted there is a lot of work ahead.
Some of the grading and site work already has taken place, and a road into the site off of W. Drexel Ave., called IKEA Way, has been built.
Bukiewicz said he believes the local road system will be able to accommodate traffic generated by IKEA and other businesses that may follow.
“We did a traffic analysis,” he said. “We will have other roads in here as development happens. We’ll have access from 27th Street, possibly other areas, too. Most of their business is done on the weekends, so we’re confident we can handle it.”