Take Two translates the day’s headlines for Southern California, making sense of the news and cultural events that affect our lives. Produced by Southern California Public Radio and broadcast from October 2012 – June 2021. Hosted by A Martinez.
The largest IKEA in the U.S. opened with a crowd of thousands, face-painting and a sawed log (more on that) Wednesday morning in Burbank.
The old IKEA down the road was built in 1990 and was the company's first store on the West Coast, but lately it had been bursting out of its box.
So the retailer wanted to stretch its legs by expanding into a new space that's nearly double the original's size at 456,000 square feet.
Burbank Mayor Jess Talamantes and IKEA store manager Jeff O’Shaughnessy welcomed shoppers not with a ribbon-cutting, but with a traditional Swedish welcome by sawing a log in half.
IKEA is a big money-maker for Burbank as one of the top five sources of tax revenue for the city.
The Mayor says he hopes that a bigger store will attract more customers and more sales tax.
More showrooms and wider aisles are two improvements the new store has over the former one. Plus, the restaurant can now seat 600 people and the parking lot has 1,700 spaces.
It still takes a long time to saunter from the front door to the check-out. Here's a timelapse video taken while walking through the second floor of the new store.
But if you've just got a few things to buy, KPCC's Leo Duran was in and out within 30 minutes, and still had enough time for a coffee and cinnamon roll.
