IKEA opens in Manhattan

The Upper East Side location will be one of 30 city-sized stores Ikea will develop around the world in the next three years. 

  • Photos courtesy of IKEA
  • Just over a year after IKEA opened its first pop-up store in central Stockholm, the furniture store opens its first city center store in the U.S. in Manhattan.

  • The IKEA Planning Studio opens in Manhattan on April 15 but interestingly, the new location is just a few blocks from the spot where an IKEA city store opened in the late 1990s, on Lexington Avenue. With no means of easy shipping of furniture and lacking the present collaboration with TaskRabbit to assemble furniture or the recently opened customer fulfillment center in Staten Island, the early investment flopped. Today’s IKEA U.S. has the tools in place to make it work.

  • Photos courtesy of IKEA
  • The new store at 999 Third Avenue, NY, NY covers three floors and will focus on smart solutions for urban living and small spaces. It will complement the existing stores in the New York market and allows customers an opportunity to discover, select and order IKEA products for delivery to their homes - contrary to their present stores it is not a full buy-and-carry out operation. The Planning Studio will be open seven days a week from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Globally, IKEA plans 30 new stores in city centers over the next three years. For more info on IKEA, see www.ikea.com/us