Quote:
Originally Posted by CoryB
I think they did some research on their existing stores to see the reach they had and determined they pulled from a lot further out than the boundaries of the city. I remember seeing drawing that suggested the target market for the Winnipeg IKEA included most of southern Manitoba and even into North Dakota.
One of the articles in the media hype running up the the opening talked about the politicians involved in getting IKEA here. That article specifically hinted that IKEA is thought to be looking at opening a distribution center in CentrePort. I thought it was a little odd as this is the first I have heard about that and the politicians would definitely be in the know.
Also wanted to comment that I am really impressed with how well traffic in moving in the area immediately around IKEA. It may be hard to believe but it seems to have actually improved since the store opened.
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Top: yes, I think they certainly did. Its an excellent little GIS project to determine what the catchment zone for a Winnipeg Ikea would be. Give it a little time and we'll start seeing steady rural MB, SK, NW Ont, and even ND residents coming in for a weekend visit. I would expect that if a hotel development is still part of the Seasons site plan, we'll be seeing one pop up (BUILD THE DAMN WATERPARK HERE TOO!!!!).
Middle: Its funny, I had always thought that IKEA was a major lobby for changing the Sunday shopping hours, but now that they're finally open, their Sunday hours are only 11 - 6. Maybe they just wanted that one hour... hmm... But on the distribution centre, that would make sense because IKEA only has what, 8-10 stores in all of Canada, and they're split fairly evenly West and East. Instead of having two distribution centres, one in the west (Calgary?), and one in the east (Markham? Missisauga?), they could central it for the entire country -- they must ship everything all neatly packed in boxes, all neatly packed in intermodal rail cars. (Heh, Ikea Winnipeg could have it's own spur line if you think about it).
Bottom: Me too! My wife and I went down there today and we did notice that northbound Kenaston was pretty slow, but the traffic around the store itself was fine. Heh, people are not using the curb lane southbound on Kenaston through the Sterling Lyon Parkway intersection -- left a nice wide open path to get to the store. Parking was spilling over into an overflow lot; Cabelas sure is making progress.
Lets not get too comfortable though, the real traffic problems will slowly but surely arrive as all the other retail opens. But I'm thinking it'll be like Regent / Lagimodiere... busy on weekends, but not apocalyptic. Again the fear-mongering (same with the parking downtown for the MTS Centre) comes out, creates a nice story for the media to run with, when in fact, the reality is quite different.
Had fun at the store -- its laid out exactly the same as the Coquitlam store (from what I can tell). I was unable to get a cinnamon bun
because my 16-mo son had had enough of the place by the time we reached the marketplace. Oh well. Next time.
p.s. If its -40 and blizzarding out and you've got cabin fever, what better GIANT indoor place is there to go hang out in town