http://www.bizjournals.com/louisville/stories/2006/08/14/daily5.html

IKEA to open West Chester store
By Jim Bebbington
Staff Writer
Monday, August 14, 2006
WEST CHESTER TWP., Butler County ? Swedish furniture maker IKEA is finalizing plans to open its first Ohio store in West Chester, according to sources familiar with the negotiations.
A press conference is expected Tuesday to formally announce the deal.
Company officials have declined comment in recent weeks over speculation it was looking for an Ohio location. Others rumored to be under consideration included the northern Columbus suburbs.
The stores are destination retail sites, with some customers driving hundreds of miles to them. Stores are now located in the Pittsburgh and Detroit suburbs.

IKEA to open West Chester store
By Jim Bebbington
Staff Writer
Monday, August 14, 2006

WEST CHESTER TWP., Butler County ? Swedish furniture maker IKEA is
finalizing plans to open its first Ohio store in West Chester, according
to sources familiar with the negotiations.

A press conference is expected Tuesday to formally announce the deal.

Company officials have declined comment in recent weeks over speculation
it was looking for an Ohio location. Others rumored to be under
consideration included the northern Columbus suburbs.

The stores are destination retail sites, with some customers driving
hundreds of miles to them. Stores are now located in the Pittsburgh and
Detroit suburbs.

Contact this reporter at (513) 755-5122 or jbebbington@coxohio.com.

Ikea will build a 300,000 or 350,000 square-foot store on a large vacant parcel adjacent to southbound Interstate 75 off Muhlhauser and Allen roads, Township Trustee George Lang said today.

Ikea, township and county officials are expected to make the announcement Tuesday at an 11 a.m. press conference at the township hall, 9113 Cincinnati-Dayton Rd.

?It will be huge. Assuming that tomorrow Ikea announces a West Chester location, that?s a major coup for West Chester because of the specialty type of retailer they represent,? Lang said.

?This will be their only store in the entire state so I am assuming they are drawing from hundreds of miles to attract customers there.?

Schumacher Dugan Construction is the developer of the Muhlhauser/Allen road site. Chris Wunnenberg, director of development, declined comment today.

County Administrator Derek Conklin and Lang said Ikea did not ask for a tax break.
?It never came on our radar screen,? Lang said.

Ikea officials could not immediately be reached for comment today. The retailer, which never asks for tax breaks, draws shoppers from hundreds of miles away.

With 250,000 Ohio customers, Ikea has been looking at Cincinnati for a store site, a company spokesman said earlier this summer.

But it?s also looking at Columbus, Cleveland and most other major U.S. markets, Ikea spokesman Joseph Roth has said.

The privately held chain opened its 28th store in June in Canton, Mich., near Detroit.
Ikea has more than 230 stores in 34 countries.

It opened its first U.S. store outside Philadelphia in 1985 and expects to have 50 U.S. stores in the next six or seven years.

Roth was noncommittal earlier this summer about recent speculation among local real estate brokers that Ikea was looking at sites along Interstate 75 in West Chester near Union Centre Boulevard.

West Chester officials have repeatedly declined comment on whether they?ve talked with Ikea representatives.

Ikea is expected to boost the visibility and attractiveness of the Union Centre Boulevard area, which has seen more than $1 billion in commercial development since the 1997 completion of a new highway interchange.

?I don?t know if it?s going to be the crown jewel,? Lang said, ?but it will definitely accelerate the development of Union Centre. A lot of people are going to want to come here because Ikea is here.?