As shoppers continue to shift toward online and outdoor shopping options, Ingka Group is going against the grain, planning to invest in traditional indoor malls.
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The operator of most Ikea stores wants to buy more malls, adding to the mall empire it has already built and diversifying them with coworking spaces, kids’ play areas and Nordic-style food halls, The Wall Street Journal reported.
“People are looking for places that offer much more, not only shopping,” Cindy Andersen, managing director of Ingka Centres, told the WSJ. “If you bring in more reasons to visit, then people will still come.”
Ingka is actively looking to buy and develop more locations, including in the U.S., the article states.
Globally, Ingka Centres has 34 open malls — or meeting places, as Ingka calls them — and another seven under development, according to its website. The malls are anchored by Ikea stores, according to the WSJ, though Ingka recognizes that Ikea won’t bring enough traffic for an entire mall on its own.
Anderson told the outlet that even before the pandemic, Ingka knew that malls in general needed more offerings to attract consumers. Foot traffic at malls in the U.S. was down 4% on average in 2023 from a year earlier, and about 12% lower than 2019 levels, Green Street data shows, according to the WSJ.
Numbers like that have sent many former mall retailers scurrying to strip centers and urban cores. But Ingka has already invested €60M, or about $65M, in developing new concepts to activate mall spaces and attract new customers and retailers, the WSJ reported.
Ingka intends for its malls to serve as event spaces that include service businesses like hair salons and medical offices as well as retailers. Greater tenant diversity and placemaking, crafting public spaces to foster social interaction, are trends currently shaping the mall and shopping center space, according to Placer.ai.
Ingka Centres’ one location in the U.S. is on Market Street in San Francisco. The 250K SF, six-story building that opened last summer is meant to be a “unique concept” offering a mix of retail, office space, food and beverage, entertainment and digital experiences, the website states.
The 46K SF top floor of 945 Market St. is a Hej!Workshop, which is a coworking space co-launched with Industrious, Bisnow previously reported. That location opened its doors in mid-January and is the second Hej!Workshop launched globally.
Ikea is also testing small-format stores to move it into more urban areas. Its first in the U.S. was in Queens, New York. That closed in 2022 after two years in operation, which the company explained by saying it decided to “evolve to meet the changing needs of our customers.”
But Ikea is opening more compact concept stores, including a 5,500 SF Plan & Order Point in Katy, Texas, a suburb of Houston, this month. The store has showrooms, meaning customers can’t purchase the items in-store but can place orders there or online for pickup, the Houston Business Journal reported.
The store is part of Ikea’s April 2023 announcement that it will invest $2.2B in its U.S. growth through 2026, with plans to open 900 new pickup locations and create 2,000 jobs, according to the HBJ.
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