Home furnishing retailer IKEA is making progress on its first-ever Jacksonville store.
The IKEA construction team hit a milestone, as the first blue external wall went up at its site at the corner of Gate Parkway and Interstate 295 on the city’s Southside.
The 290,000 square foot building needs 516 more wall panels to take on the retail giant’s iconic blue and yellow look.
Ikea spokesman Joseph Roth said the new store layout will be a little different than Floridians are used to.
“Here we actually bought 25 acres of land, so we actually did the entire store on one single level. The self-serve furniture area, or the warehouse side, is the same as you would see in Orlando, but the showroom/marketplace/restaurant side isn’t,” he said.
Roth said the next step for the company is hiring a local team.
“IKEA Jacksonville will employ approximately 250 co-workers from the local community to join our IKEA family when the store opens. The construction created approximately 500 construction jobs too,” he said.
Roth said the store will need to hire for positions in customer service, sales, food handling and warehouse replenishment. More immediately, the company expects to hire senior management employees sometime in April.
IKEA Jacksonville should open to the public this fall, he said.
This will be the fifth location in Florida, and there are over 300 stores worldwide.
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Contact Amy Hadden at newsteam@wjct.org or on Twitter at @AmyNHadden.
