Demolishing a 60,000-square-feet vacant shopping centre on the site, the project includes 359,000 square-feet IKEA Merriam and 1,200 parking spaces on 19 acres along the eastern side of Interstate-35 and Johnson Drive, eight miles southwest of Kansas City, Missouri.
Upon completion, the IKEA Merriam will feature nearly 10,000 exclusively designed items, 50 inspirational room-settings, three model home interiors, a supervised children’s play area, and a 450-seat restaurant serving Swedish specialties as well as American dishes.
Besides that it will also include other family-friendly features like a ‘Children’s IKEA’ area in the Showroom, baby care rooms, play areas throughout the store, and preferred parking.
Actual construction of the store is likely to commence in a couple of months, with an official groundbreaking following completion of the demolition.
Committed towards sustainability, the store will be developed in consultation with Kansas-based Heartland Habitat for Humanity and other local organisations to recycle and salvage as much of the existing building’s equipment, materials, and parts as possible.
The IKEA Merriam store is scheduled to open in the fall of 2014.
