Thoughts on the new IKEA Canton, MI Store
Two months after Michigan’s first Ikea store opened in
Canton, it can still feel like opening day on weekends as a DJ plays
tunes in the parking lot, hot dog vendors whip up quick 50-cent lunches
and a good parking spot is hard to find.
Betty and John Shnell of
Sylvan Lake found that Sunday morning wasn’t too crowded. They took
their two kids, Giulia, 8, and Alvaro, 10, to the store to pick out a
new bedroom set for Giulia after dining at Ikea’s restaurant.
“I heard it was crowded,” Betty Shnell said. “You would have to take a bus and I didn’t want to come.”
So the Shnells just waited for a Sunday morning because “everyone’s at church right now,” John said.
Ikea
hasn’t kept all the success to itself. Its mere presence has made other
retailers feel more confident about Michigan’s shaky economy and two
new shopping centers and a Costco are planned for Michigan Avenue, not
far from the store at Ford and Haggerty.
“Ikea is kind of a super
catalyst. It is on a corridor that was already strong, but now Canton
is really on the radar screens of retailers looking at southeast
Michigan,” said Dave Long of CB Richard Ellis. The real estate
development company is lining up national retailers for a
500,000-square-foot shopping center at Michigan Avenue and Morton
Taylor in Canton. Long said he couldn’t announce any retailers yet but
he expects the center will start construction next summer if all goes
well with signing tenants.
“Retailers have this caution over the state’s economy,” Long said.
“THAT GRAND OPENING FEELING: Ikea remains a draw”
By Greta Guest
The Detroit Free Press
