IKEA FOR LIMERICK ?

goochy

I know local retailers wouldn't be happy but think limerick is id.eal location for store, handy for Galway / west of Ireland and Cork .
possibly ex Wickes store or Horizon mall site ?
the ex wickes building is ideal for someone to take over but not DIY as enough of them around

bazz26

IKEA don't occupy already built premises, afaik their policy is to build their premises to their own standard. To my knowledge nearly all their stores are built to the same format.

As for the likes of the ex Wickes site, it's too small for IKEA and also the Horizon site is too central for the potential increased traffic that would come with an IKEA. The surrounding road infrastructure would not be able to cope with it. An IKEA would need to be located on the outer ring just off the M7 or similar with dedicated easy access to the motorway rather than having to negotiate the suburbs of Castletroy or Ballysimon which is crazy at peak times as it is.

Mc Love

I would have thought if they knock the existing horizon structure, that it could be a great site. Not sure traffic would be an issue as there is never an issue when I have visited the Dublin Ikea store.

bazz26

The one in Dublin is right next to a motorway though with plenty of access in and out to accommodate large volumes of traffic. Naturally it gets very busy around Christmas time and the volume of traffic gets crazy. That site was specifically sought with those reasons in mind. An IKEA down this side of the country would generate a lot of traffic not just from the surrounding Munster area but further afield too as it maybe be closer than going to Dublin. The Horizon centre is at the wrong side of the M7 imo for such a large attraction of traffic and customers. Imagine the extra volume of traffic coming off the motorway at the Ballysimon interchange, it's bad enough as it is. They really would need a site with dedicated slip roads to and from the motorway.

Mc Love

Ballysimon Interchange isnt that to be honest since they did the revamp - there's a good bit of land around that access road to groody which the council could extend the lanes if needed.

Everywhere gets busy at christmas though as well - the Crescent SC being one and thats got worse road access than the Horizon site.

bazz26

I use the Ballysimon interchange pretty much every day, at rush hour it's far from fine, alot of times the traffic can back up on the southbound lane right back onto the M7 which is dangerous. The off ramp there is still narrow at the entrance to it with little room to widen it as there is a fair drop down the side. It was poorly designed from day one, the revamp only helped a little.

Anyway I'd cannot see the IKEA thing happening down here anytime soon.

Mc Love

Yeah I agree, can't see it opening here.

zulutango

If it was built beside the motorway, then suitable access to and from the motorway would need to be built with it, but I don't see that as being impossible to do.

phog

When the Crescent SC didn't get direct access to/from the the bypass at construction time then I can't see IKEA getting a new one now.

flyingsnail

phog wrote: »

When the Crescent SC didn't get direct access to/from the the bypass at construction time then I can't see IKEA getting a new one now.

Did they look for it?

phog

flyingsnail wrote: »

Did they look for it?

Pretty sure they did and I heard they offered to contribute to the cost of it if not pay for it in full.

cgcsb

I don't know how it affects local retailers really, the offering is a substantially different market, Ikea's competitors are British chains like Argos or Homebase, who cares if they loose money? Taking money out of our economy to send to Sweden instead of sending it to the UK ain't that much different, if anything the fact that Ikea pay their staff a decent wage makes them a more attractive alternative to the British chains.

Red King

I don't get the fascination with Ikea.

A lot of the stuff looks ugly and cheap.

There are exceptions of course.

James Bond Junior

IKEA will not build in cities with less than a population of 200k afaik. Would make sense however to service the western side of the country.

cgcsb

Ikea have stores on the outskirts of cities smaller than 200k. Innsbruck, a quite isolated(except for it's speedy rail access to Munich) alpine City in Austria with a 125,000 population has an Ikea, despite being only 1hr30 mins from Munich which has 2 Ikeas.

Jofspring

Watched the documentary on the smarter travel Limerick thread about Groningen in The Netherlands and they have a population of 140,000 and have one of the biggest IKEAs in the world so the 200K thing doesn't really make sense.

An IKEA in Limerick would be amazing. Huge employment would come to the area and it would service Limerick, Galway, Clare, Cork, Tipperary, Kilkenny and with the new motorway as far as Tuam it would cover Mayo. It would cover potentially 500k people.

The main reason I can't see t happen is the Dublin one is accessible to pretty much every part of the country in 2-3hrs.

goochy

lanzorote have one also and that's a tiny place !

Jofspring

goochy wrote: »

lanzorote have one also and that's a tiny place !

Gran Canaria too. That's two IKEAs in one set of islands.

cgcsb

Jofspring wrote: »

The main reason I can't see t happen is the Dublin one is accessible to pretty much every part of the country in 2-3hrs.

If that were a constraining factor, the small alpine nation of Austria, with it's 9 million people, would not be home to 7 Ikeas (not counting Ikeas very close to Austria's borders). Ireland's 2 stores serve a population of over 7 million, clearly there is scope for expansion in Ireland. I would imagine you'll see Ikea opening up south of Dublin City and somewhere outside Cork City in the early 2020s

goochy

they have been refused permission for south Dublin - limerick would suit better than cork as it is closer to west but can still serve cork etc.

Firefox11

cgcsb wrote: »

I don't know how it affects local retailers really, the offering is a substantially different market, Ikea's competitors are British chains like Argos or Homebase, who cares if they loose money? Taking money out of our economy to send to Sweden instead of sending it to the UK ain't that much different, if anything the fact that Ikea pay their staff a decent wage makes them a more attractive alternative to the British chains.

Well if the local retailers actually offered good value for money instead of tying to fleece you, that would be fine. And you know it's only going to get worse as the economy improves.

Jmccoy1

IKEA in Coventry is practically in the middle of the city centre.