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Plans that have been in the works since 2019 to bring an Ikea to Ontario, California, have stalled.
The home furnishings giant had originally planned a retail location but decided to instead develop a distribution center after the pandemic began. But the city of Ontario shut that idea down, the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin reported this week.
“During Covid they understandably realized that their business model had changed and they felt it was more appropriate at that site to do e-commerce and have it as an industrial facility,” Ontario Executive Director of Economic Development Jennifer McLain Hiramoto told the Bulletin. “And [the property] is not zoned for that and we did not feel like it was an appropriate use of that site.”
The city and Ikea are now at an impasse, the Bulletin reported. Ikea already owns the 19 acres across from the Ontario International Airport where it originally announced it would build a 330K SF retail store aimed at capturing business from the entire Inland Empire.
The company, famous for its giant big-box stores, announced earlier this month that it was planning to spend more than $2B over the next three years to open eight new U.S. retail stores, nine smaller-format stores and 900 pickup locations, as well as significantly expanding its network of last-mile and distribution centers.
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