photo courtesy of Next STL
The IKEA rumor has become a reality according to Alex Ihnen's post on nextSTL Wednesday. Read the entire post here.
If you're pressed for time, here's the section of Ihnen's report I find particularly interesting:
"In the larger picture, the good news for the city isn’t about needs-assembly furniture or cheap meatballs, it’s the presence of a $100M annual sales retailer, the estimated one million shoppers and 400 employees the single store will bring. And because of the consumer traffic they generate, IKEA stores often attract other retailers. Pace Properties is planning another retail development east of Vandeventer named Midtown Station. That development was first reported here in July. Other development announcements including residential and additional retail is expected to follow soon.
Of course the important shift in development, and retail development into the City of St. Louis, will initially be lost in the fervor over the IKEA name, but the store is locating in the city for a reason. St. Louis is hot and the re-invention of the central corridor appears to just be beginning. The larger story isn't about a furniture store, it's about shift in development towards the city. The city is about to see the same principle of retail momentum play out in the nearby Central West End, as a mixed-use development featuring a 40K sf Whole Foods, the first in the city, will generate traffic and produce sales numbers that will encourage additional investment."
Yeay!!!!