Ikea will invest 10 million in the opening of two new stores in Barcelona

Ikea brings its urban store format to Barcelona. The multinational company of Swedish origin has announced an investment of ten million euros in the opening of two establishments of these characteristics in the Catalan capital next summer, which will mean the creation of more than one hundred direct jobs.

In addition, Ikea plans to test a new commercial format aimed at companies in Barcelona and specialized in office design and interior design projects. According to the company, this is a pilot test that, if successful, could be extrapolated to other cities. "We want Barcelona to be a testing ground for format innovation," said the chain, which considers the Catalan market "strategic" and one of its "priority growth areas." "In the next two years, we expect to increase our workforce in Catalonia by more than 18%," the company states.

With this investment, Ikea will land in the golden mile of furniture and decoration stores in Barcelona, the stretch between Francesc Macià and Paseo de Gràcia. Specifically, the company will open a two-story store with a commercial area of 1,525 square meters at Diagonal 532 ---between Aribau and Tuset---, in a building owned by Colonial that has been recently remodeled and that houses, precisely, the corporate headquarters of the real estate group.

In parallel, the Swedish chain will open another urban format store at the Westfield Glòries shopping center at the end of summer, with a sales area of 1,622 square meters distributed on a single floor. Both establishments will have about 2,500 products on display, of which one thousand can be purchased in the store itself. To acquire the rest of the items ---which are available in the large centers of Badalona, L'Hospitalet, and Sabadell---, this store model has an assisted online shopping service, with the possibility of picking up the products in the same store within 24 hours.

At Diagonal 532, Ikea will also open a small restaurant called Swedish Bite, which will also have a terrace. In Glòries there will be no restaurant area, but there will be a store selling Swedish food products.

"The goal is to strengthen our presence in the very heart of the city and be closer to the people of Barcelona," says Ikea to justify its decision to implement the urban store format in Barcelona, which it already operates with three points of sale in Madrid. Since 2021, the brand has already been present in this same area of Diagonal, at number 445, but through a type of establishment it calls a "planning space" and which it will now transform into a pilot to assist companies that want to design interior design projects with the help of the professional team from the Ikea Business division.

With these two new openings, Ikea will have 18 "contact points" in Catalonia, including stores and collection and planning centers. Specifically, it will have the three large establishments located in Badalona, L'Hospitalet, and Sabadell, and the two new urban stores in Barcelona; to which are added five planning and design spaces, eight delivery points located in the four provinces. In addition, Ikea has a large logistics center located in Valls. According to the multinational, the 18% increase in staff planned for the next two years will result in the opening of up to twelve new "contact points" with the customer.

According to Colonial, with the lease formalized with Ikea and some other "negotiation in progress," the Diagonal 532 building will be close to full occupancy after the renovation. In total, the furniture retail chain has leased 2,555 square meters in the property, which has 11,780 square meters distributed over 9 floors. In addition to Colonial's corporate headquarters, the building houses a Utopicus brand coworking space, which occupies two floors.