I’m very pleased to welcome a new patron to the Fishbowl today… Ikea!
Monday night I had the opportunity (along with about 200 other friends and media types) to attend a sneak preview of the new Ikea opening here in Ottawa and it totally surpassed all of my expectations.
They are officially opening to the public on Wednesday. They’re expecting 13,500+ people to walk through the doors that first day (which is why I’m going to wait at least a week before attempting a return visit), and I totally understand why. There is, after all, plenty to be excited about.
Ottawa is moving up. The old store was the world’s smallest IKEA, and the new one is now it’s Canada’s largest at a whopping 427,000 square feet. The new Ottawa IKEA carries the full range of 9,500 IKEA products, as well as 55 inspirational room settings, 28 creative kitchen concepts and three full house displays.
So yeah. It’s big.
Question: how many elephants could you fit inside the new Ikea?
Answer: a lot. (All kidding aside, if someone could answer this for me I would really appreciate it.)
Some points of interest:
There are 640 seats at the new restaurant. Here’s a peek at what the eating (and lounging!) areas look like:
As I mentioned, there are 55 room settings, and couches as far as the eye can see:
There are three complete mini-homes within the new Ikea, an excellent way to visualize small spaces:
There are 36 cash lanes (yay!), and 1,200 parking spaces… 600 of which are sheltered (and the bike racks are there too!):
There’s a a bigger and better child care area and ball room. I would love to try it out. Even for five minutes.
I have always loved the children’s section. This one is even bigger:
… and so is their kitchen planning centre. And there are even more great kitchen concepts (be still my beating heart) than ever before:
And the building is 40 per cent more energy efficient than the last store (which was built in 2004). I think that’s pretty cool.
So yes. Exciting stuff for Ottawa! Will you be checking out the new Ikea? :)
