IKEA

[Pete]

Keep in mind that north OKC is almost halfway between OU & OSU and is very near UCO, by far the 3 biggest universities in the state.

And college kids and those just out of college are huge markets for IKEA.

[Rover]

This is a great point. If located in Tulsa, then IKEA could grab the OKC, Tulsa, and rapidly growing NW Arkansas (Bentonville/Fayetteville/Springdale) markets together.

Edit: forgot Ft. Smith and Joplin too.

If you raise it to 250 we can claim Dallas and you can claim Kansas City. You can prove whatever you want by using you own metrics. But if you use area of dominant influence, Tulsa still ranks well below OKC. Sorry Tulsans try so very hard to make themselves superior.

[Swake]

If you raise it to 250 we can claim Dallas and you can claim Kansas City. You can prove whatever you want by using you own metrics. But if you use area of dominant influence, Tulsa still ranks well below OKC. Sorry Tulsans try so very hard to make themselves superior.

Except Dallas and Kansas City already have Ikea locations. And both area larger with more influence than Tulsa or Oklahoma City.

And you are wrong:
OKC 250 miles: 16,770,142
Tulsa 250 miles: 20,074,431

[chssooner]

Except Dallas and Kansas City already have Ikea locations. And both area larger with more influence than Tulsa or Oklahoma City.

And you are wrong:
OKC 250 miles: 16,770,142
Tulsa 250 miles: 20,074,431

We get it, you want one in Tulsa, not OKC.

[Swake]

We get it, you want one in Tulsa, not OKC.

Sure, why not? why is that offensive? I still expect it will go to OKC.

But if it does go to Tulsa it will likely be in Jenks, which they were looking at years ago. By the Simon outlet mall.

[catch22]

I think the “college kids” demographic for IKEA is a bit overblown. Anytime I go to IKEA (pretty frequently) it seems the most common demographic is 25-40 year old professional types either as a couple or with a small family. IKEA isn’t the super bargain anymore, they have really added to their more expensive lines. I can drop $1000 in IKEA and leave with just a few items now.

The $19 chairs and $49 dining tables (which I furnished my first humble studio apartment with) are a smaller and smaller part of their catalog.

[jn1780]

OKC makes sense just because it's the crossroads for a lot of interstates and it's easy to tap into all that existing distribution network. I wouldn't rule out a potential Tulsa store also just so they can be closer to Tulsa and all of southern Missouri. They be fine with A Kansas City, St Louis, and OKC store though. Just depends on what their strategy is. Sounds like they want to build pickup locations all over the place so I would also expect another distribution facility to be built potentially on Oklahoma.

[PhiAlpha]

Except Dallas and Kansas City already have Ikea locations. And both area larger with more influence than Tulsa or Oklahoma City.

And you are wrong:
OKC 250 miles: 16,770,142
Tulsa 250 miles: 20,074,431

I love Tulsa and live here but no matter how much you want it…there is absolutely no logical argument for us getting one before OKC does. Population? OKC. Population growth rate? OKC, Young professional population/growth: OKC, Urban residents: OKC, Location: Convergence of 3 interstates vs. 1 interstate (a turnpike…so you have to pay to conveniently get here)...advantage OKC. Medium to large colleges (over 10k): OKC- OU (20-30 minutes), OSU (1 hour to 1.5 hours), UCO (10-20 minutes). Tulsa: OSU (1 hour), Arkansas (2 hours).

This just isn’t the right market for ikea and I’m not even sure OKC is but it’s much closer.

[Pete]

The bottom line: IKEA has been looking in the OKC market.

Not sure if they are going to do something here but they've been in town before and have recently talked to Chisholm Creek and others.

[bombermwc]

i'm not holding my breathe that they will open a full sized store here (it would be nice) but i would settle for the order store as long as i dont have to then pay a bunch of money to get the crap. If i have to pay more under that model, i'm not going to use it. The weight of their products makes shipping unrealistic.

I still get some things there off and on, even in my 40s. The bookshelves have come a long way over the years and you can get some nicer looking stuff than just the plain ole Billy Bookcase. I even ended up with a few duvet covers the last time i went through the Frisco/Plano one. Fitting that stuff in the car for a long drive home is a bit of a pinch. So having an option in town would be great. I'm just not thinking that in the post-covid world, that there's as much of a draw for the full mega box store.

[WenDragon]

I'm ancient and I still buy from them. Particularly the Milsbo and Detolf for indoor greenhouses.

[Rover]

Except Dallas and Kansas City already have Ikea locations. And both area larger with more influence than Tulsa or Oklahoma City.

And you are wrong:
OKC 250 miles: 16,770,142
Tulsa 250 miles: 20,074,431

I wasn’t wanting to include them… just saying gerrymandering your area can produce results to prove what you want to prove. It’s easy to imagine your own boundaries to manipulate the numbers.

There’s a reason OKC area is expanding faster.

[Plutonic Panda]

They’re go to NWA before they locate in Tulsa I’d imagine. But they’ll going to build in OKC.

[bombermwc]

There's a nice area ready for it in Moore next to Costco. Just saying, it doesn't always have to go all the way up on Memorial. Or for that matter, Norman has room in University Park.

[stlokc]

Every IKEA I have ever seen (except one) has acres and acres of parking on the periphery. If that is to be the case with any future OKC location, then I hope it is located in a suburban area with quick highway access. I would not, for example, want it in Chisholm Creek, because the amount of parking necessary would completely destroy the vibe they are attempting to create with that development. Someone mentioned Oak in a different thread, that doesn't work for the same reason.

I do think the Kilpatrick corridor is the correct place demographically but I shudder at the jarring nature of all that parking. Perhaps it would work east of Costco if the access roads were improved. Or maybe along the I-35 corridor south of the turnpike.

The one exception I referenced above is in St. Louis, where by some miracle of miracles the city managed to convince them to locate right in the heart of the city with a big parking garage. There's still too much surface parking for the location but there is talk of breaking it up into development parcels. I don't know if I trust OKC to get that right.

[roci28]

West OKC/Yukon has a ton of land with I40 and the Kilpatrick going right through and 15 min from I44. With airport Td and the Kilpatrick the south and North metro can get there pretty easily.

[Rover]

West OKC/Yukon has a ton of land with I40 and the Kilpatrick going right through and 15 min from I44. With airport Td and the Kilpatrick the south and North metro can get there pretty easily.

Don’t you think it would more likely be on the Tulsa/Wichita/Joplin side of the city than the Amarillo side?

[Decious]

Couple of older yet interesting articles that give some insight into how Ikea comes to their location decisions. Of course, this thinking could be totally different near a decade later but I’d imagine there is some similitude.

http://alloveralbany.com/archive/201...ikea-here-well

https://www.tennessean.com/story/mon...hope/20495909/

[WileyPostage]

IKEA's announcement about eight new stores without naming the locations is savvy, since it gives IKEA the opportunity to pull states, cities, and counties into lucrative incentive bidding wars. As this article about the incentives granted to IKEA in Memphis says "... IKEA is highly successful in receiving subsidies from American governments. According to The New York Times, IKEA has been awarded $21 million in seven government grants in four states in about eight years, and Good Jobs First even puts that amount at $32.5 million."

Source: What It Really Cost to Bring IKEA to Memphis: A look at how Memphis and Shelby County played the game

[UrbanistPoke]

So I looked it up.

Oklahoma City's population within a 150 mile radius is 4,243,414 with a growth rate of +5.9%
Tulsa's population within a 150 mile radius is 5,675,178 with a growth rate of +6.6%

And for IKEA purposes a good portion of OKC's 150 mile radius is in north Texas and closer to Frisco than OKC.
OKC's population within 150 miles excluding the part of the radius in Texas is 3,833,739

At a 25 mile radius OKC has 1,459,380 people to Tulsa's 1,034,123. That's an easy choice for OKC, but not the 150 mile radius. It will come down to what is more important to IKEA, the immediate area or the larger regional area.
https://www.statsamerica.org/radius/big.aspx

I still say it's probably Oklahoma City, but I can certainly see them in Tulsa. I will guess that one of the cities gets a location this time and the other gets a smaller order point location.

Tulsa really underperforms as a regional retail center anymore and it's a shame because it has the perfect location almost equally between NWA and OKC. It's also slightly closer for Wichita/SW Missouri to get to Tulsa than KC. It's too bad a regional connection from Tulsa to Wichita has never happened, upgrading 75 to Bartlesville then split toward Wichita would be nice to have. The market to draw into Tulsa has so much potential and you highlighted it well (1 million + more than OKC) and that will only continue to expand. The population center of Oklahoma in the past several decades keeps moving closer to Tulsa and not OKC.

Tulsa's MSA size has always been understated because Muskogee, Pryor, Bartlesville all get cut out because of "commuting patterns" because they aren't bedroom communities - unlike a Guthrie, El Reno or Shawnee is in comparison. OKC exurbs don't have big employers like a ConocoPhillips in Bartlesville or Port of Muskogee or MidAmerica. The big draw in for say Shawnee is more so Tinker for example and El Reno would be the airport and industrial centers along I-40 in OKC, so the commuting patterns from those areas are more traditional for Census designations.

Muskogee and Bartlesville are about 40 miles "as a bird would fly" from downtown Tulsa with MidAmerica 35 miles and El Reno, Guthrie, etc. are 30ish miles from downtown OKC, Shawnee 35 miles. If you added Mayes, Muskogee, and Washington the Tulsa MSA would be closer to 1.25 million and you also have Tahlequah and Grand Lake not that much further away which are both sizable 'exurban/rural' population areas too. Grand Lake is about 40,000 people with a lot of very wealthy retirees and others with strong connections to Tulsa. The regional population around Tulsa is not that much smaller than OKC - Census categorization doesn't always tell the full story of a region. Western Oklahoma is stagnant in population growth to put it nicely. Mayes and Muskogee I wouldn't be surprised if in the next Census in 2030 are officially added to the MSA especially with Panasonic and Port of Inola developments - that entire eastern area will become a lot more integrated. Tulsa's MSA in 2030 could very well be in excess of 1.5 million. Mayes County will easily double in population if Panasonic and the other deals materialize.

Tulsa would be a better location for an Ikea from a regional perspective since they are really looking to make the stores more of a distribution hub. It's also right in between the Frisco location and the KC location. I doubt Oklahoma in general is at the top of their radar in this round of expansions. I'd bet they are looking closer at markets like Nashville, New Orleans, Raleigh-Durham, NW New York (Buffalo, Syracuse or Rochester). I could see them opening up a pick-up location like they have now in Albuquerque and Nashville in OKC or Tulsa or both. Eventually if they keep expanding Oklahoma will get a location but not sure if it'll happen this round. If both St. Louis and KC can have stores and support them on their own I don't see why eventually both Tulsa and OKC could have stores.

[TornadoKegan]

i want to say OKC a plan and order point but a full sized store is not out of the question ether if one were to come there are 2 areas it could go in 1 is near the Kilpatrick turnpike near Edmond if they wanted a south side location West of the Moore Costco or South of the Mission Point Apartments would be good spots

[scottk]

i want to say OKC a plan and order point but a full sized store is not out of the question ether if one were to come there are 2 areas it could go in 1 is near the Kilpatrick turnpike near Edmond if they wanted a south side location West of the Moore Costco or South of the Mission Point Apartments would be good spots

Both are great.

Moore/Norman has OU students who live on and around campus, the Memorial Road corridor/south Edmond is filled with apartments and would offer quicker access for those from Tulsa, OSU Stillwater, and Wichita on the north side.

[Plutonic Panda]

Both are great.

Moore/Norman has OU students who live on and around campus, the Memorial Road corridor/south Edmond is filled with apartments and would offer quicker access for those from Tulsa, OSU Stillwater, and Wichita on the north side.

South metro is more likely.

[Rover]

South metro is more likely.

That’s why Costco went there first, right?

[catch22]

I think Moore is 100% opposite of their target demographic. If it went south it would go as close to Norman as possible, if not Norman itself.

“Cheap” European furniture won’t sell on 19th street.

This is a north side deal.