Inside the new Winnipeg IKEA

I heard there was a media night for the new IKEA here in Winnipeg, so I put on my trench coat, stuck a card that says "PRESS" in the band of my fedora, and snuck in for a preview.

I was amazed by what I found: a DJ, free champagne, appetizers from MISE Bistro, a killer gift bag filled to the top with awesome stuff, 15% off everything in the store... I could certainly get used to being a member of the media. If a young person ever comes to me and asks for advice, I'm going to tell them to go into journalism. Best job ever!

I should start by saying that I like IKEA. The office I am currently sitting in features two IKEA book shelves, an IKEA desk, an IKEA wall-mounted cabinet, an IKEA garbage can, and probably a couple of other miscellaneous items from the Swedish megastore. Not all of our rooms are like this mind you, but we do enjoy shopping there.

You would think, therefore, that I would be enthusiastic about IKEA coming to town. Well I am, but only moderately so. We have probably already bought all of the home furnishings that we ever would buy from there, at least for a while.

If I go to IKEA now, it's mostly for small things: little boxes for organizing, tea lights, lunch .... I have never actually had the famous IKEA meatballs. I thought tonight might be the perfect night to try them out. I just have to find the meatball station hidden somewhere in Canada's second largest IKEA.

The bamboo IKEA USB stick that they gave us says that the store is 395,671 square feet. That is a mere 3,000 square feet smaller that the Ottawa store, although both will be eclipsed next year by the expanded Montreal store at an astounding 500,000 sq ft.

The size of the Winnipeg store is a little bit misleading. The warehouse portion is larger than most other stores because, as one IKEA employee put it, our store is an "island" with no other distribution centres around. I expect this means that catalog orders to Regina will come from here now instead of Calgary.

With the larger warehouse, the actual shopping area probably isn't that much larger than most other IKEAs. If you been in one elsewhere, you know what to expect including tidy little "inspirational room settings" that showcase the products, and a 1.3 km labyrinth-style layout that will take you past lots of clean lines, geometric shapes, and bright colours.

What's different about our IKEA? Mostly improvements in the building itself: geothermal heating, skylights, a rainwater collection system and other similar things. They did not paint the building green in case you were wondering. There will be bicycle parking too, for you hardcore bike nuts.

The insanity starts for real on Wednesday, November 28. And just because it wouldn't be crazy enough as it is, IKEA is giving the first 1000 people free "mystery boxes" with a $75 gift card and a chance to win up to $5000 of IKEA stuff. Good luck peeps. I'm glad I got to go to this shindig, because I'm staying the heck away from there at least until the madness subsides ... which will probably be sometime next spring.

... but I will be back because I still haven't had any meatballs!!  Would you believe I completely missed the meatball station? I don't know how that happened.

Another water park for Winnipeg!

As expected, EPC approved the $7 million grant for an Alberta developer of road side inns to build a half-assed water park at the historic Forks site.

SAME DAY: Global Winnipeg comes out with this: Water park also planned for IKEA site in Winnipeg

It comes as no surprise to local developer Hart Mallin. “As it makes sense at West Edmonton Mall or Mall of America or anywhere else across North America where you have significant shopping installation you want some water facility,” Mallin told Global News Wednesday.

No surprise indeed. In fact some know-it-all blogger named Cheren-something wrote this back in March of 2009:

One last thing: I am making the call: You will see a water park on this site. Ledo's big waterpark at Polo Park is dead. This is where the big park is going to go: at the Ikea Centre CanadInn.

Little Gray Bird also wrote this last Sunday:

Let a private company buy some land out by the new Ikea and build a water park there on their own.

It was probably in the cards the whole time, but the announcement or leak was delayed until the uncertainty of Sam's plan was cleared up. Now that the IKEA developer knows that the water park at the Forks will be small and unlikely to provide competition for their plan, they are comfortable coming forward with it.

Ironically, Sam's overwhelming desire to draw a "world class" water park to Winnipeg probably threatened or delayed that very thing.

City Hall: Buy this land

I don't normally pay attention to these things, but I happened to notice that Manitoba Hydro is selling surplus property on the north east corner of Kenaston Blvd and Sterling Lyon Pkwy. I suggest to the City that they consider buying this land, because eventually we will have a leader who recognizes that massive traffic congestion on a major thoroughfare is BAD and that accidents involving SUVs with IKEA furniture strapped to the roof is also BAD.

Inevitably that visionary leader, whoever he or she may be, will realize that this thing needs to be fixed, and will decide to do what should have been done in the first place, which will be something like what I suggested should have been done, which was to build a north-south flyover on Kenaston with on and off ramps, and have a controlled intersection with stop lights east of the overpass on Sterling Lyon, as shown here, thus allowing the majority of the traffic on Kenaston to flow uninterrupted past this gong show of Starbucks-fueled suburbanite shoppers.

If you're unwilling to do it properly the first time, then at least buy this land, sell off the bits you don't need, and keep the rest so that a future leader will be in a position to fix your mistakes.

*edit*

just to liven things up a bit, here's a photo I snapped today when I stopped for ice creme in Trehern. What a beautiful day!

ERBAN SPRÅLL -- slightly improved

Oooo. More info about the new IKEA development!

Michael Nozick, Fairweather's president, said the shopping centre is being designed with landscaping and other features to minimize the effects of a Winnipeg winter.

"If I used the word 'dome,' that would be a little bit of an exaggeration. That's close, (as) it will be out of the effects of winter," he said. -fp-

Um, sorry dude ... the stores are still outside, ergo shoppers are still going to be exposed to the effects of our weather. Anyhow ... I'm actually here to make some positive comments for a change! Yes really. See:

Along with the ceremonial digging of the dirt and the hyperbole about how revolutionary this mall will be, there were also a few new drawings. I have to say that the new layout looks much better than the original plan, which I have previously compared to buildings being puked out onto a concrete parking lot.

Old plan:

new plan:

The developers obviously read and carefully considered my previous blog post where I recommended that the smaller stores all be grouped together into a walkable outdoor mall format. I like that the big store at the NW corner of Kenaston and Stirling Lyon is gone, I like that the strip of stores along the northern edge of Stirling Lyon are gone, and I like that the stores are now clustered together without any parking between them.

The southern half of the development is also much improved, although I noticed that somehow the development extends much farther west than it used to. How did that happen? Was that another freebee thrown in by the city? Has anybody out there heard anything about this additional land being sold to Fairweather? Also, what's happening with the bike paths along the south side of Stirling Lyon?

Oh well, who cares! Soon I will be able to eat $1 breakfasts and buy more FURKEN shelves and KRÅPPY cabinets for my house! (I do like IKEA, by the way. For some things.)

Now if only somebody would pay attention to my other suggestion to get rid of that idiotic 56 lane controlled intersection on Kenaston and build a split-grade fly-over instead.

Here are some more pics of the project (source: Dorsky Hodgson):

related: policy frog | graham .

Bits and bites: Ikea, CBC, more CBC, Magic Accounting

Oooooh. To much to talk about and not enough time to write. Must use point form.

Quick, approve it before they change their minds!

No time is being wasted in making sure we land the master angler marlin of big box stores. I am dismayed that more scrutiny is not going into this proposal. Rather than repeating my last post, I'll give you a scorecard of the proposal:
o IKEA - A
o Location - C+
o up to seven additional big boxes - D
o numerous smaller retailers - depends how they do it
a) The current layout - F.
b) My idea for a walkable outdoor mall - best idea in the history of ideas: A+
o 100-room hotel - B
o 500-unit condo building - if you want to live in the parking lot of a Target with a railway track 100 yards away, knock yourself out. - C
o 150,000 square feet of office space - D Go fill an empty building or parking lot downtown.
o 16-screen movie theatre - C (which other theatre(s) will close because of this??)
o water park (not yet proposed, but just you wait) - B+
o new traffic lights on Kenaston - big fat F This should be a deal-breaker. Go back to the drawing board and try again.

Is this good news or bad news?

CBC president Hubert Lacroix announced Wednesday that a $171-million budget shortfall is forcing the taxpayer-funded broadcaster to slash about 800 jobs and cut both TV and radio programming.

Wow. Welcome to the real world boys. Though some cuts may affect the on-air product, those 70 middle-management positions won't be missed.

Quirks and Quarks

Say what you will about CBC's excessive political correctness, biases, and extravagant spending,
there are a few things worth tuning in for. The snaggle-toothed host of Quirks and Quarks, Bob McDonald, gave a free speach at the U of M Monday (thanks for the head's up? you're welcome) that lasted over an hour. It was an entertaining speach from a guy who makes a living communicating scientific research and ideas in terms that everyday joes can understand. Check out the show if you're not familiar with it.

Budget Thoughts

Haven't had a good look yet, but new blogger NDP Convert gives it 5 stars. Brian at JDS doesn't rate the budget, but he seems to have a strange fascination with Hugh McFadyen's face. I think I should maybe assess it for myself.

One quick initial thought: The elimination of small business tax rate is not smart. Not good bang for your buck. NDPers will tell you "60% of all jobs are from small businesses" but that is irrelevant. It does not follow that cutting this tax rate will increase jobs more than cutting other tax rates. Small businesses are less likely to relocate to another province, for example. And for goodness sake, they are only taxed at 1% as it is. Maybe the reason large businesses account for fewer jobs than small businesses is because large businesses are overtaxed?? Chipping away at the Corporate and payroll tax rates would do much more for job creation. This cut is purely ideological.

Anyhoo, perhaps I'll come back with more thoughts on the budget later. Or perhaps I'll come back with a buyers guide to prostitutes. You just never know!

I'll leave you with this -- my tribute to Gary Doer, who was able to provide us with a balanced budget including debt repayment, while simultaneously increasing the provincial debt (again):

Suggestions on Ikea Development

I am now going to geek out with some planning stuff that I have no training in. But why not? I don't think the Kenaston & McGillivary development was carefully crafted by a highly trained planner, and this new development isn't looking much better on paper so I figure I might as well throw in my bit.

Here are the problem spots:

Red circles:
I totally agree with Policy Frog that this is shaping up to be a traffic nightmare. Route 90 is already bad. Throw in increased traffic from Royalwood and Sage Creek as they fill out, Waverly West, and then a destination store that will draw traffic from all over the place, plus another 1.2 million square feet of commercial space and clearly you're going to have a road rage factory on your hands.

The MMM traffic study seems to back this up:

I won't explain the LOS scoring system, but "F" isn't good ... and that's where we're at now. I am also pretty sure the projections here are conservative, since MMM is behind the proposal as well.

Purple circles:
I mentioned in the comments of a previous post that the development resembles croutons floating in a bowl of soup. This is what I mean. If you want to go from one store to the other you either have to drive, or hike clear across a parking lot.

Here are some ideas (so you don't call me "anti-development". I am ok with development .. I just want it to make sense):

There is no way around it: you need an overpass on Kenaston. Period. (I guess that is three periods, but anyhoo ..) Put the traffic lights on Sterling Lyon which has much lighter volume. All entries and exits from Kenaston are via merging lanes. South-bound traffic can flow directly into the development, but north-bound traffic would have to go through a new controlled intersection just to the east of the current one (which will be replaced by the overpass).

As for the purple buildings, all of these suckers should be moved to the north half of the development and arranged in an outdoor-mall arrangement, much like some of those discount malls that people love to visit in the US. I think this could really be something special if they put a little thought into it. Park once and spend half a day walking between the stores without having to dodge cars or walk across frozen concrete waistlands.

I also think we have too many box stores already, and Bartley tells me that they're going out of style anyhow, so I say scrap a couple of those and try to attract more smaller buisnesses for the mall.

One last thing: I am making the call: You will see a water park on this site. Ledo's big waterpark at Polo Park is dead. This is where the big park is going to go: at the Ikea Centre CanadInn.

Raise my taxes, Mr.Katz

The Ikea open house was this afternoon, and like Graham I wasn't able to make it, but I did see a picture of the proposed layout in the Free Press today. Unfortunately it's not on their web site yet, but this description is:

To make the project happen, Fairweather will spend $26.5 million to widen Kenaston, Sterling Lyon and Shaftesbury Boulevard and install three new sets of traffic lights. The city and province will eventually pay all but $4.5 million of these costs back.

Major Sammy so excited about Ikea coming that he's willing to foot 85% of the bill for the infrastructure upgrades. He is excited because Ikea is a big city thing, and Sammy wants to be a big city major. Rapid trasit is also a big city thing, and we've got that coming soon too. All these big city things makes Sammy feel good.

However, as it turns out, our big city pants are really small town diapers with pictures of freeways printed on them. A big city would build an LRT line or subway instead of a glorified bus route. Likewise, a big city would build proper infrastructure for a 1.5 million sq ft commercial development. Here in Winnipeg we throw up a few traffic lights and call it a day.

I like Ikea, but this development is going to be like Kildonan Crossing, which I avoid like the plague because it's impossible to get out of. We should rename it Hotel California.

So why do we cheap out on everything? Are we forcing this big city thing to much? Do we really need rapid tranist, and would Ikea really stay away if we forced the developer to go halfers on an overpass? Would it help if the city collected a little more revenue? Is this because property taxes have been frozen for eight years? 'Cause if it is, maybe we should think about raising them, rather than causing permanent damage to the design of the city.

So all those rumours were true

I've been out of the bloggosphere for about a week or so due to personal commitments including the loss of a family member, so my apologies for the lack of activity. I'm still busy with the usual pre-Christmas mayhem, but I'll post something just to let people know that the blog is still an on-going enterprise.

Hmmm. So many things to post on ... how about IKEA? Waddayaknow, they are coming after all:

IKEA said it will built a 350,000-square-foot store, becoming an anchor tenant in a 1.5 million retail development on the southwest Winnipeg site.
..
The deal is contingent on receiving planning approvals from the province and the City of Winnipeg. -fp-

"contingent on receiving approvals from the province and the city" = done deal. Can you imagine either Sam Katz or Gary Doer getting in the way of this? Both those guys are so excited about the prospect of an Ikea ground-breaking ceremony that they peed on the carpet when they heard about it. If this city caves in to developers of Home Depots and stucco houses, you can bet that they'll roll over for Ikea, even if it doesn't make any sense.

"I'm thrilled to see this major retail project transform from talk to action," said Katz. "The city has worked diligently to create an 'open for business' environment," he said. "By accelerating existing infrastructure plans we are encouraging smart, responsible development." -cbc-

Whatever, Sammy. How many traffic lights are you going to put up for this store anyhow? Is there going to be yet-another surface level intersection on Kenaston, or another set of traffic lights on the already-misnamed Sterling Lyon Parkway? Or better yet, at-grade intersections on both streets, just to make Ikea happy?

Does somebody have a link to this "existing infrastructure plan"? Does it really call for a widing of Sterling Lyon? 'Cause that street is only, like two years old or something. Are you telling us that you built it below spec right off the bat? When is this city going to learn to build things properly the first time instead of cheaping out only to force more expensive upgrades in the future? The Kenaston underpass is another example. Why the hell would they build it to accomodate only four lanes of traffic when they knew that Waverly West was coming and you had existing plans to widen the road?

It's not that I don't want Ikea to come. After all I'm sitting at an Ikea desk, under a set of Ikea cabinets, next to Ikea bookshelves and an Ikea garbage can, wearing Ikea underwear and sipping Ikea egg nog. Let's just do this right, hey? I'm actually kind of glad it not going to polo park like I guessed here. The traffic around PP is hideous. However the traffic on Kenaston is not great either thanks to short-sighted development, and could get worse if Sammy doesn't behave himself.

IKEA

Madeleine Lowenborg-Frick, a spokeswoman for Ikea Canada, said this morning the company has identified a parcel of land in the city that it is interested in developing -fp-

Hmmmmm...


related note: the Bring IKEA to Winnipeg! Facebook group has ballooned to 191 members from 121 this time last year. No wonder they're eyeing us up!

IKEA In Winnipeg?

This has absolutely nothing to do with current events, but I came across this Facebook group today: Bring IKEA To Winnipeg!

Let's hope IKEA doesn't see that. With a whopping 121 members and a most recent wall post of Sept. 24, I think that would put the nail in the coffin. Granted, there haven't been any rumors going around since January, but with it being shopping season and all, I figured it might be a little more active than that!