A small-format Ikea store will be an anchor tenant in a planned 65-acre mixed-use development along Interstate 30 in Rockwall.
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Dallas-based developer PegasusAblon said the Swedish chain is coming to the Rockwall Heights project, which will feature more than 350K SF of retail space, 485 townhome and rental units, restaurants, and a green space in the center with an amphitheater, The Dallas Morning News reported.
Work on the retail portion of the planned development will make up the project’s first phase.
“If we could be out of the ground in a year and a half, we’d be very excited about that,” PegasusAblon Principal Mike Ablon told the DMN. “Ikea will allow us to bring retailers that might not otherwise come to Rockwall. We’ve got ... serious conversations already for tenancy, and as quickly as we can put that together, we’ll move forward.”
The do-it-yourself furniture retailer announced the new store will span one floor of 108K SF with around 90 employees, the Rockwall County Herald-Banner reported. That’s less than half the size of the 293K SF multifloor Ikea store in Frisco.
“We have been testing different store formats to increase customer convenience, make home delivery more cost-efficient, and reach our customers where they live, work, and socialize,” Ikea U.S. CEO and Chief Sustainability Officer Javier Quiñones said in a statement. “IKEA Rockwall represents a key milestone in this ongoing journey.”
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While the store will feature fully furnished room settings for shoppers to browse, larger furniture items such as beds and sofas will only be available for order. The location will also offer a new Swedish deli concept from Ikea Food and a Swedish Bistro offering takeaway items and an outdoor seating area.
Most of the 70 new stores the furniture retailer opened in its fiscal year 2023 were of the small-format variety, Axios reported earlier this year. However, Ikea’s first attempt at a small-format store lasted less than two years in Queens, New York.
The Rockwall store is slated to open in December 2025 on the northwest corner of Interstate 30 and North Stodghill Road. The project’s architect is GFF, while Segovia Partners will be its retail broker.
The Rockwall Heights development received some pushback from residents concerned about traffic and its multifamily component when the project went before the Rockwall City Council.
Ablon told the DMN that feedback gave him a good understanding of the concerns of residents and pointed out most of the traffic to the Ikea location should be coming from I-30.
Rockwall County was one of the fastest-growing areas of the country from July 2022 to July 2023 among counties with 20,000 or more residents, and Ablon expects that growth to continue. He called the area where PegasusAblon is building the “dominant location” for the next wave of growth in the Metroplex.
Rockwall is slated to get another well-known retailer in H-E-B next year. The powerhouse Texas grocer is constructing a 131K SF location for the city.
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