International furniture giant Ikea has announced plans to open a store in Memphis, according to a release issued by the Sweden-based company today.
Ikea is one of the most popular furniture companies on the planet. And with only 40 locations in the United States, their stores routinely draw visitors from hundreds of miles away. Currently, the nearest Ikea stores to West Tennessee are in Atlanta, Georgia and Frisco, TX (a suburb of Dallas).
According to the release, “The proposed IKEA Memphis would be the first IKEA store in either Tennessee, Arkansas or Mississippi, and would increase the Swedish retailer’s presence in the Southeastern U.S.”
The announcement is drawing praise in Memphis and ire in Nashville, causing a stir on social media. A tweet from The Tennessean is currently catching heat from West Tennesseeans.
The announcement follows another major announcement from retailer giant Target, who plans to locate a 400-plus job logistics facility in the Bluff City—another sign of economic growth in West Tennessee. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, the GDP of private sector good-producing and service-producing industries in Memphis has risen from $47 billion in 2003 to $60 billion in 2014.
Ikea plans to open the store located near the Wolfchase Galleria on Germantown Parkway—just 45 minutes from Brownsville and an hour and a half from Jackson— in 2016.
