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What's the harm in having the main entrance face the parking lot when 99% of the store's customers will use a car to get there? You have to walk a hundred miles inside the store anyway, so if you arrive on foot or on the TTC, what's the big diff if you have to walk down the side of the store to the entrance?

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Here's what Torontoist uncovered -
http://torontoist.com/2008/07/king_swede_east.php

July 16, 2008
King Swede East


King Street East is known for its high-end furniture retailers like Roche Bobois and UpCountry, so it's a bit of a surprise to see the logo for everyone's guilty pleasure, IKEA, on a classy King Street storefront.

Torontoist reader Sofi Papamarko asked us to investigate this mysterious downtown presence of the eco-conscious Swedish giant, suggesting that it could be an office furniture location or a boutique IKEA (similar to the Leon's planned for the Roundhouse or the downscaled Brick store at College Park). The windows at 143 King Street tease a date of July 31, 2008—which curiously is the same day that IKEA releases their annual catalogue.

"It's not a store," a rep for the company told Torontoist, "but it is a place where customers can check out products from the 2009 catalogue."

A furniture showroom where you can't buy anything on-site is an interesting concept, but it's also smart: the showroom can be tailored to the dense condo market (which demands smaller items and is more likely to request home delivery), but it also avoids the bad press surrounding warehouse-style box stores in the city core. Plus, it's right on the spårvagnen, er, streetcar line, so no trips out to Etobicoke or North York just for a look-see at the Poopli pencil holder.

Aesthetes rejoice, for the store boasts none of IKEA's trademark blue-and-yellow, but subtle gold logos decaled on the windows, appropriate for the historic architecture between Jarvis and Church.

We're curious to see what exactly appears on July 31, as three floors of the building are under heavy construction inside. The showroom is a contrast to the premium-priced wares of King East strip, and if you ask us, det är bra!

Photo by Marc Lostracco.
 
interchange42 said:
What's the harm in having the main entrance face the parking lot when 99% of the store's customers will use a car to get there? You have to walk a hundred miles inside the store anyway, so if you arrive on foot or on the TTC, what's the big diff if you have to walk down the side of the store to the entrance?

42
Click to expand...

It discourages pedestrian traffic by emphasizing the need for a car. It's not a matter of practicality, but changing attitudes. It's because of designs like that that no one thinks of IKEA as a store you could walk in and buy small items in. Yet they sell at least a couple of small stores' worth of things you actually can carry home. It even has that restaurant which could have generated some pedestrian traffic.

It wouldn't have been expensive either.
 
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/.../07/16/ikea-to-open-briefly-on-king-east.aspx
___________________
IKEA to open, briefly, on King East
Posted: July 16, 2008, 4:52 PM by Rob Roberts

By Brianna Goldberg, National Post
An IKEA will open downtown in two weeks, but “it’s not a store,†according to the Swedish furniture company.
IKEA signs recently went up in the windows of 143 King Street East, between Church and Jarvis, leading to speculation that this would be Canada’s first urban IKEA store.
Madeleine Lowenborg-Frick, PR manager for IKEA Canada, said they will open the two-floor location in Toronto’s furniture design district for a media launch in two weeks. She was adamant that it is “not a store,†would showcase things in the catalogue, and would not be permanent.
The space is exponentially smaller than the large all-in-one furniture showrooms, warehouses, and tiny-meatball-snack-shops found in Vaughan, Etobicoke, and North York. It also has a classier feel than the box stores, which is fitting for the upscale retail in the neighbourhood: no huge parking lot blue and yellow signs. The logos at 143 King are gold.
Ms. Lowenborg-Frick spoke of IKEA’s themed “pop-up†stores in Manhattan’s Soho district, and a kitchen-focused IKEA in downtown Paris, although she said the King Street location is the first of its kind.
“We want to bring our product to the street, where we can present ourselves competitively against higher-end design companies and really show people that we have beautiful things,†she said.
Its King Street location will put IKEA within a block of competition from swanky furniture boutiques including Upcountry and Harvest House Furniture.
She said this non-store IKEA will have “higher-end products that are more expensive, and have a greater attention to detail.†She said this is in hopes of combating the “antiquated view†of IKEA’s quality and design.
Greg Rapier, Canadian regional manager for Knoll custom office furniture, which has a showroom next door to the temporary IKEA, said he’s skeptical IKEA will be able to compete with the quality of offerings in the area.
“They’ll surprise me if they do, that’s for sure,†he said. “To me, they play in a very different market.â€
Ms. Lowenborg-Frick said this mysterious IKEA will open to media on July 30 for a simultaneous launch of their new catalogue and new advertising campaign that includes a character from “So You Think You Can Dance.â€
Signs on the location say it will be open on July 31. That’s the same day 6.5 million new IKEA catalogues will be delivered to homes across Canada.
 
khristopher said:
If downtown got an Ikea, that would be nuts. We already have more stores in the GTA than any other city in the world, last I checked anyway.
The 2 in Toronto, Vaughan and Burlington. Okay Burlington isn't GTA, but close enough.
Click to expand...

One would think (hope?) that the downtown chattering classes would be too discerning to support an Ikea, but whenever my partner and I spend a rainy Sunday perusing the aisles at either the one on Queensway or Sheppard, I spy an awful lot of other 'couples.' And the place is packed.

Just wait until Wal-Mart opens downtown, then we can get upset.
 
junctionist said:
It discourages pedestrian traffic by emphasizing the need for a car. It's not a matter of practicality, but changing attitudes. It's because of designs like that that no one thinks of IKEA as a store you could walk in and buy small items in. Yet they sell at least a couple of small stores' worth of things you actually can carry home. It even has that restaurant which could have generated some pedestrian traffic.

It wouldn't have been expensive either.
Click to expand...

I agree with the principle you are espousing, but I don't see the practicality of establishing it here: there is no real pedestrian traffic in the area, and it has no hopes for any as there are no residences nearby. It's all industrial, with infill commercial strips and a giant church. If you can walk here from the nearest homes (north and east of Kipling and the Queensway, about 900 metres away) then you can walk 50 metres to the parking lot doors, where 99% of Ikea's customers are arriving and always will.

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interchange42 said:
I agree with the principle you are espousing, but I don't see the practicality of establishing it here: there is no real pedestrian traffic in the area, and it has no hopes for any as there are no residences nearby. It's all industrial, with infill commercial strips and a giant church. If you can walk here from the nearest homes (north and east of Kipling and the Queensway, about 900 metres away) then you can walk 50 metres to the parking lot doors, where 99% of Ikea's customers are arriving and always will.

42
Click to expand...

The Queensway is listed as an avenue in the Official Plan, therefore we can expect it to see major redevelopment and densify dramatically, a process that is already underway and gradually moving westward. Lord knows the street is in desperate need for a makeover. I also wouldn't be surprised if it got an LRT ROW in the next phase of Transit City from the Humber Loop to Sherway. Urbanizing the suburbs and modelling this change on downtown (pedestrian and transit oriented) is the future. As junctionist said, it's about sending a message and changing the culture.
 
It'd be cool if it could be a permanent store location, and then a larger downtown location at CityPlace.
 
Darkstar416 said:
A small pedestrian entrance from The Queensway (in addition to the main parking lot entrance) would have been a nice urban gesture though. Non?
Click to expand...

Towered said:
The Queensway is listed as an avenue in the Official Plan, therefore we can expect it to see major redevelopment and densify dramatically, a process that is already underway and gradually moving westward. Lord knows the street is in desperate need for a makeover. I also wouldn't be surprised if it got an LRT ROW in the next phase of Transit City from the Humber Loop to Sherway. Urbanizing the suburbs and modelling this change on downtown (pedestrian and transit oriented) is the future. As junctionist said, it's about sending a message and changing the culture.
Click to expand...

That store was in the planning stage a dozen years ago now I think, and IKEA wanted to put it against the Gardiner with a sea of parking fronting the Queensway. I think the City asked for the right thing at the time, and it has worked out pretty well.

You must admit that an Ikea will mostly attract shoppers in cars, coming from all over the region. This one would attract people from all over the west half of the city, Mississauga, Brampton, etc. Get closer to Burlington, Vaughan, or North York, and the pull of those locations takes over. So, if the large majority of people are coming by car, you have to plan for them. The North York store, the only other central GTA location before this one, was famous for the massive traffic jams along Sheppard and Leslie, with cars lined up to get in and out. By putting the parking lot in the back, away from the Queensway, you make a place for the line of cars waiting to exit. Once the parking lot is in the back, you need the doors to face it because of the percentage of shoppers moving large items into their trunks. All of that is why the building is oriented the way it is. The lack of a pedestrian door on Queensway is because of Ikea's layout: you follow a path when you are in those stores - it's part of their whole shtick. A pedestrian door at the back corner doesn't go with their interior flow.

We should be glad that the City demanded the window displays on the Queensway face so that it's not just one giant wall facing the street. I think that is enough of a compromise for a road that has little to no pedestrian traffic on it, and very little promise of any in the future. Queensway may be an Avenue in the Official Plan, but let's face it, the City is really looking for improvements east of Kipling, not so much west of it. It is not foreseeable that the area this Ikea is in will see residential development. I live for the day when Toronto's arterials feel more like Vienna's, but this area is never going to be that - I think you are both asking for too much in this particular case, that's all!

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I'll offer an awning covered walkway!

42
Getting hungry - and not for Swedish Meatballs!
 
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