byIris Dimmick
It can take more than 90 minutes to drive from San Antonio to the nearest Ikea in Round Rock, a suburb of Austin. Ikea officialsannounced plans Tuesday morning to open the Swedish furniture giant’sfifthTexas location in Live Oak, pending approval. Slated to open in the summer of 2019, the store would be a 20-minute drive northeast from downtown San Antonio.
“I am so excited to not have to go to Houston or Austin to shop at Ikea,” Bexar County Commissioner Tommy Calvert (Pct. 4) stated in a County news release.“Ikea may not be aware that people will come from all over South Texas to shop at this store and we know shoppers from Mexico will also make the pilgrimage.”
The store would sit on 31 acres, include 1,000 parking spots, and employ about 250 people,according to Ikea officials. The plan is dependent on Ikea’s purchase of the acreage and approval of building and development permits from Live Oak and Bexar County.
“We’re under contract to purchase the 31 acres of land,” said Joseph Roth, expansion public affair manager for Ikea U.S., which probably won’t close “until after governmental approval” of zoning, site plan, design, and street access.
“We currently have solar at 90% of our U.S. locations,” Roth said. “We’ll evaluate this location for on-site renewable energy as well.”
In 2017, Ikea will open a store east of Dallas in Grand Prairie, Texas. As of August 2015, it had a total of 328 stores in 28 countries, 42 of which are in the U.S.
The southwestern corner of I-35 and Loop 1604 is an attractive spot because of its visibility and accessibility to highways, Roth said.
The County is developing its first public-private partnership at 1604 and Rocket Lane near the new Ikea and Randolph Air Force Base.The 51.5-acre multi-use satellite campus will include an $8 million dollar Northeast side Sheriff substation, which the County acquiredin May. Talks are underway for funding a clinic, aBexar Bibliotechdigital library, and other community services on the campus.
The fast-growing I-35 corridor between San Antonio and Austin is lacking in retail, Calvert stated.
“We can all see the corridor between Austin and San Antonio becoming a fully developed corridor, and there is no doubt this will be a major draw along I-35,” hestated. “We’re exploring all potential support to the City of Live Oak to ensure that Ikea knows Bexar County welcomes them with open arms.”
To offset infrastructure and “extraordinary” construction costs, Ikea will apply for an economic incentive package from the City of Live Oak, Roth said. Details are pending negotiations with the City, but the total amount will be based on expected tax revenue from the store.
In 2015, sales at IKEA’s 42 locations in the U.S. totaled about $5 billion, an average of more than $110 million per store.
Iris Dimmick
Senior Reporter Iris Dimmick covers public policy pertaining to social issues, ranging from affordable housing and economic disparity to policing reform and mental health. She was the San Antonio Report's...More by Iris Dimmick
If Calvert thinks the I-35 corridor between Austin and San Antonio lacks retail, he hasn’t driven it lately.
Your proofreaders are directionally challenged. In the original story, you referenced (and then fixed) a line about IKEA being northwest of San Antonio (corrected to northeast).
Then, in the reference to a new IKEA opening in 2017, you referred to it being “east of Dallas in Grand Prairie”. Grand Prairie is actually west of Dallas, and is east of Arlington and Fort Worth. Mesquite is east of Dallas.
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I also agree with charles210. I don’t know why Tommy Calvert thinks that the I-35 corridor lacks retail. It has both retail, and the traffic that goes along with that. What it lacks now is the infrastructure to support the retail that is there now, and the people who live and shop along the corridor.
Maybe his vision is for total development – with total retail development (shopping, apartments, services) lining both frontage roads and making San Antonio and Austin one unified megalopolis. Right now, there are pockets of undeveloped land between the Forum and FM 3009; between Schertz and New Braunfels; very little between Creekside and San Marcos’ parallel retail center; only the Blanco River separating San Marcos from Kyle; and, Kyle and Buda already grown together into one city, with only Onion Creek separating them from SW Austin.
If the I-35 Corridor were fully developed, it would take a Katy Freeway to handle the traffic and support the people who lived, worked, and shopped there. Imagine I-35 having five-plus free lanes each way, plus two managed lanes each way, plus three lanes of frontage road each way – for eighty miles! Katy is only that way for about ten miles, and that came about when the railroad relocated its tracks and opened up land for the widening/rebuilding of that road.
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