The familiar yellow will come later but the equally familiar blue already is going up on the Ikea store under construction in ×îÐÂÐÓ°ÉÔ´´ at Forest Park and Vandeventer avenues.
Workers began this week to install the blue exterior panels that indicate the 380,000-square-foot building will be an Ikea store by next fall. Ikea says work on the building's steel frame is far enough along to allow exterior installation to begin.
Ikea's ×îÐÂÐÓ°ÉÔ´´ outpost is the only U.S. store the Swedish retailer plans to open next year. The Kansas City-area Ikea, in Merriam, Kan., opened this fall. A store in Las Vegas is scheduled to open in 2016.
The 21-acre ×îÐÂÐÓ°ÉÔ´´ store site is within the Cortex life sciences district, which did the heavy lifting in negotiating sales agreements with previous land owners. Plans are underway to build a MetroLink station a short distance west of the Ikea site, which will have 1,300 parking spaces.
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Rob Olson, chief financial officer of Ikea U.S., said in a statement the building should be enclosed in a few months so that interior work can begin. The store is expected to employ about 300 people.
