Quote:
Originally Posted by djh
I was a little flabbergasted when I realised what Ikea Canada was doing. Could they have not just expanded the existing Ikea into the land on which they built a totally new Ikea? After all, it is literally adjacent to the old site. And what is an Ikea more than just a huge box with a huge parking lot? The architecture is hardly complex or unique.
Just seems like a huge waste of perfectly good working resources.
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The new and the old Ikea aren't exactly what I would call close to each other either. The new Ikea starts past where the old one's parking lot ended. So if it was a parkade, it would be a LONG walk to the old building. Also, there isn't much land directly east of the old Ikea, not enough for any kind of linear expansion. The building would have to curve, and have a narrow chokepoint between 2 halves. Not exactly Ikea's style.
Plus I absolutely hated the old Ikea there and never went. Its layout was horrible (the exits and entrances) and parking sucked. I preferred the way the Coquitlam Ikea was built, and it's parking, and always went there.
Parking under a building takes up a lot less space than a building and an adjacent parking structure or parking lot. So, while you see careless waste of building materials, with the new Ikea I see a carefully planned use of a much more limited resource: land.