Construction, Good for Business, Investments, Latvia, Markets and Companies, Retail

IKEA opening in Riga in August 2018. Photo The Embassy of Sweden in Riga.

Construction of the IKEA store is to begin in the region of Stopini, just outside Riga, in the spring of 2017, and the store has to be completed in about one and a half year. It is expected that around 300 builders will be involved in the construction project.

The IKEA store in Latvia will be situated around eight kilometers to the east of the Riga city center. This will be a regular IKEA store with a parking lot for more than 1,000 motor vehicles. The IKEA store, which will be 34,500 square meters large, will be built on a ten hectares large land plot.

In the future, total investments in the property might exceed EUR 100 mln.

Palmason noted that by its size the IKEA store in Riga will be slightly larger than the already existing store in Vilnius, but that the assortment of products will be roughly the same in both stores. A children's area in the IKEA store will include baby care rooms, playgrounds and family parking facilities.

The IKEA store in Stopini will provide jobs to some 400 people, with the selection of employees expected to begin already in a few months' time.

Today, Palmason and Riga mayor Nils Usakovs signed a cooperation agreement on the local authority's planned support to the launch of the first IKEA store in Latvia, which involves necessary adjustments to transport infrastructure.

Usakovs said that the location of the would-be IKEA store was chosen by the company's representatives. The Riga City Council had offered land plots next to Lucavsala and Riga International Airport, but the developers preferred the location in Stopini.

The Riga mayor indicated that this is the first time that the local authority provides a EUR 500,000 financing for transport infrastructure upgrades, which are necessary to ensure a smooth connection with the new store.

In December 2016, the Riga City Council decided to conclude a cooperation agreement with Verus Praedium on the adjustments to transport infrastructure that are necessary to ensure the operations of the planned IKEA store.

As reported, IKEA's only store in the Baltic countries at the moment opened in Vilnius in 2013.

The Swedish furniture seller IKEA is planning to enter the Estonian market after opening a store in Riga next year, Sigurdur Palmason, a representative of the operator of the IKEA store, told on Tuesday.

''After opening our store in Latvia, we plan on entering the Estonian market as well. However, it is too early to say when,'' he said, adding that the IKEA store in Estonia will be located in Tallinn.

He added that there will most likely be only one IKEA store in Latvia and that no more stores will be opened there in the future.