If you're a fan of meatballs and do-it-yourself furniture, then get ready. IKEA announced plans for a new store in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. Rumors have been circulating for years about a Wisconsin location for the home furnishings store, which plans to open up shop on a 100-acre site currently owned by Northwestern Mutual.
The company plans to break ground in the spring of 2017 and open in the summer of 2018. Unlike some other locations, it will be a single-level store and feature a cafeteria-style restaurant.
The new development has been met with excitement by fans of the Swedish store, many of whom currently drive to the nearest IKEA in Schaumburg, Illinois.
Veronica Lundback is one such fan. Lundback is a senior lecturer in Swedish and Scandinavian Studies at UW-Milwaukee, and a native of Kalix, Sweden. While IKEA is, of course, a very commercial enterprise, Lundback believes the company subscribes to very Swedish ideals.
"We're a lot about functionality and simplicity and also the concept of sustainable business, or sustainable ideas, sustainable thought. They also incorporate Swedish values in the way they operate things," she says.
Lundback admits that her home is filled with IKEA furniture, and she regularly goes to the company's Schaumburg location. But she finds herself going there not for the home furnishings, instead she goes to the cafeteria or picks up some food from their small, Swedish market. She says the atmosphere is just indescribably Swedish.
"You have that sense of home when you get there, even though it's a commercial place because the style is recognizable. It's very... simple, good design, good quality furniture," she says.
And for people who question the quality of their furniture, Lundback has some choice words. "Let's put it this way: I've had my first couch that I got from there and it's still at my parents' house and it's [been] 26 years now. It's still keeping together, and there's nothing wrong with it," she says.
