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IKEA coming to Nashville; 2020 opening planned

After a long odyssey to bring an IKEA to Nashville, the popular Swedish furniture company has announced plans for a new retail store off Interstate 24 in Antioch.

The company said Thursday that it has selected the mixed-use Century Farms property in southeast Nashville for a 341,000-square foot store.

Pending approvals, construction of the Nashville store could begin in spring 2019, and the store could open in summer 2020, the company said.

“We are excited at the possibility of growing our southeastern U.S. presence with a Nashville store,” IKEA U.S. president Lars Petersson said in a news release. “This location would provide our already 140,000 Nashville-area customers their own store and introduce the unique IKEA shopping experience to others throughout Middle Tennessee.”

The news release said more than 500 jobs are expected to be created during the construction phase, and approximately 250 people would be hired for the store.

The expansion announcement comes just months after IKEA opened a new $64 million, 271-000 square-foot store in Memphis, which marked the company’s entry into Tennessee.

The company picked the site in Antioch — which has craved a new anchor attraction ever since the demise of the Hickory Hollow Mall a decade ago — over several other potential sites in Nashville. They include sites near the Nashville International Airport, downtown and in Bellevue.

There are no city incentives in place for the company, sources told The Tennessean.

For more than five years, rumors have circulated about IKEA opening a store in rapidly growing Middle Tennessee.

The 2014 announcement of the new Memphis store quieted those talks momentarily, but chatter picked up again last year after The Tennessean reported IKEA was scouring multiple Nashville locations near the city's interstates.

IKEA announced in April it planned a new store for Columbus, Ohio. In its news release, the company touted that project as creating 500 construction jobs and 300 retail jobs.

IKEA has 390 stores in 48 countries including 43 in the United States, according to that press release. Their stores typically feature several stories of furniture goods, plus an array of food service offerings.

The 310-acre Century Farms mixed use site is located off I-24 in Antioch. That fits the IKEA profile of choosing sites with prominent interstate visibility.

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