Economy & Economic Development  August 4, 2016

Ikea to open store at I-25, Highway 7 in Broomfield

New location could employ 250 people, open as early as 2018

BROOMFIELD — Swedish home-furnishings retailer Ikea has identified a site in Broomfield for its second metro Denver store, the company announced Thursday.

According to a media release issued by the company’s U.S. headquarters in Conshohocken, Pa., Ikea has identified a 123-acre site on the northwest corner of Interstate 25 and Colorado Highway 7, and the city and county of Broomfield has begun the process of incorporating the retailer into a master-planned regional retail center there.

Ikea Development LLC is purchasing the site from Northlands Colorado LLC, an entity of Alberta Development Partners, the Greenwood Village-based developer that oversaw the redevelopment of Foothills Mall in Fort Collins. Ikea spokesman Joseph Roth said Ikea hopes to close the sale by this fall.

SPONSORED CONTENT

Solar Operations and Maintenance for Commercial Properties

One key qualification to consider when selecting a solar partner to install your system is whether they have an Operations and Maintenance (O&M) or service department. Since solar is a long-term asset with an expected lifecycle of 30 plus years, ongoing O&M should be considered up front. A trusted O&M partner will maximize your system’s energy output and therefor the return on your investment.

An Ikea store typically occupies 25 to 35 acres, Roth said. The Centennial site of Ikea’s first Denver-area store, which opened in 2011, took up only 13½ acres because of the compact location and holds a two-level store elevated above two levels of parking, Roth said, “but that’s not ideal. This location will be more spread out.”

Roth said whatever acreage Ikea doesn’t use at the Broomfield site will either be developed by Ikea or sold off in parcels for ancillary development.

“We just know that that’s where we want our second store to be,” he said.

Broomfield mayor Randy Ahrens said a regional shopping area “has been on our master plan since 1995. That fits right into our goals.”

The original idea was to develop a regional mall on the site, Ahrens said. “We’d had conversations with Macerich and other developers, but it became obvious we weren’t going to be able to replicate FlatIron Crossing there.”

An Oct. 14, 2005, story in BizWest — then the Boulder County Business Report — reported that Alberta Development Partners had planned a $275 million retail center on the site called Northlands that was to open by the end of 2008. That development never materialized.

A representative of Alberta Development Partners did not return calls seeking comment.

“We heard about Ikea 10 years ago when they were first looking to locate in the Denver area,” Ahrens said. “We were one of the people holding our hands up in the classroom and yelling, ‘Pick me! Pick me!’ Obviously, we lost out to the south end” when Ikea chose to locate in Centennial. However, the conversation with Broomfield continued.

“In the last year, we’ve been working with Ikea to solidify the plans,” Ahrens said. “We’ve known what they were going to do since early this year, but Ikea asked us to keep it under wraps. I’ve had to sit on my hands, and it’s really tough when you’ve got something you’re excited about.”

Broomfield already has made changes to the way the site is parceled out to accommodate the store, Ahrens said.

Ikea has not yet determined an exact timeframe for submitting specific store plans or for actually opening the store, and the company said it wouldn’t open for “several years.” Ahrens estimated that the store could open by late 2018 or 2019, even though “we’d like to see it open next week.

“We will be working with Ikea the next few years to prepare for construction,” he said, “and also working with state and local partners to bring multi-modal transportation connections to the store” including bus rapid transit from the Regional Transportation District.

“When you look at east-west connections on the north end, there aren’t any,” he said, “so Highway 7 is going to be a major road. That’s why we’re putting a plan together. For a change, we’re trying to get ahead of the ballgame.”

Ahrens pointed to the rapid development along Colorado 7, including a Children’s Hospital location, an office of the National Archives and 66 acres purchased by the University of Colorado on the south side of the road for a medical campus.

“This is one of the — if not the — most important new intersections we’ve got to take care of in north metro,” he said. “This is going to open up a lot of things. Ikea will draw from a 50-mile radius — Boulder, Loveland, Greeley, Fort Collins. And if you look at it, there are probably 90,000 consumers in just a five-mile radius.”

“We are excited at the opportunity for a potential second Denver-area IKEA store at this location in Broomfield,” said Lars Petersson, president of Ikea U.S., in a prepared statement. “A store in this retail corridor would complement our strong presence established in Centennial and eventually provide customers in the northern part of the Front Range an Ikea store closer to them.”

The usual Ikea store contains nearly 10,000 exclusively designed items, 50 room settings, three model-home interiors, a supervised children’s play area and a restaurant serving Swedish specialties such as meatballs with lingonberries and salmon plates, as well as American dishes. The stores also feature play areas, baby-care rooms and preferred parking.

Ikea estimates that construction could bring more than 500 jobs, and the store would employ about 250 people.

Ikea was founded in Sweden in 1943 and has more than 380 stores in 48 countries, including 42 in the United States.

BROOMFIELD — Swedish home-furnishings retailer Ikea has identified a site in Broomfield for its second metro Denver store, the company announced Thursday.

According to a media release issued by the company’s U.S. headquarters in Conshohocken, Pa., Ikea has identified a 123-acre site on the northwest corner of Interstate 25 and Colorado Highway 7, and the city and county of Broomfield has begun the process of incorporating the retailer into a master-planned regional retail center there.

Ikea Development LLC is purchasing the site from Northlands Colorado LLC, an entity of Alberta Development Partners, the Greenwood Village-based developer that oversaw the redevelopment of Foothills Mall…

Dallas Heltzell
With BizWest since 2012 and in Colorado since 1979, Dallas worked at the Longmont Times-Call, Colorado Springs Gazette, Denver Post and Public News Service. A Missouri native and Mizzou School of Journalism grad, Dallas started as a sports writer and outdoor columnist at the St. Charles (Mo.) Banner-News, then went to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch before fleeing the heat and humidity for the Rockies. He especially loves covering our mountain communities.
Sign up for BizWest Daily Alerts