IKEA offers to fund speedier roadworks on M50

RadarControl

The Swedish furniture retailer IKEA has reportedly offered to pay the cost of speeding up roadworks on the M50 motorway in Dublin.

Yesterday, An Bord Pleanála approved the company's plans for a massive 30,000 square metre outlet in Ballymun, but said the store could not open until works on the nearby M50 interchange are complete.

Those works are not expected to be finished until 2010, but reports this morning say IKEA has offered to pay the cost of speeding up the project so it can open in September of next year.

The company is seeking a meeting with the National Roads Authority and Fingal County Council to discuss the situation.

http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/mhkfeysngbkf/

Drax

Does anybody else think putting this store inside the M50 is bad idea?

I was reading this morning that there are a number of stipulations for this store including opening from 11am - 11pm and also with other IKEA stores you can browse the store out of hours - but not with this one.

I suppose them paying for M50 upgrade works is a good idea short term but I think this store should be put outside or at the edge of the the commuter belt.

stovelid

Drax wrote:

I was reading this morning that there are a number of stipulations for this store including opening from 11am - 11pm and also with other IKEA stores you can browse the store out of hours - but not with this one.

Not sure If I'm picking this up wrong, but the 11AM -11PM time means they can open during the evening rush hour?

I love the way IKEA keep mentioning the 500 jobs, as if the opening of the store is solely an altruistic gesture to the people of Ballymun.

whosedaddy?

Suppose the issue with somewhere near the commuter belt is that other road infrastructure would be completely overloaded... just shifting the problem elsewhere.
And getting planning permission for building such a montrocity in the "countryside" - how is that in keeping with the landscape?

re the jobs - yeah as if IKEA has to hire those 500 people out of Bullymun... (it might just be one of those 30 conditions)

They should provide some flatpack swedisch road workers to help getting the M%) upgrade done. All they care about is the Bullymun exchange i reckon.

talkingclock

Another (bit OT) thing: in Germany each IKEA has a free creche in every shop. You could leave the small kids for one or two hours there while you do your shopping. Some parents use this as a "day care" for their kids.

I wonder if they will have this in Ballymun as well...

ManAboutCouch

Another condition is that there won't be any free parking at the store.

The full judgement is available from the An Bord Pleanana website here: http://www.pleanala.ie/IKEA.html Word documents only, by the look of it.

I read in one of this morning's freesheets that IKEA reckon they'll get about 3 million visitors per annum, and a total spend in the region of €150 million, so the average visitor is expected to spend €50 per visit. I wonder how that compares to their competitors.

AndrewMc

Maybe we should start renaming our national roads, like the Naas Road should be the Ryder Cup Road, and the M50 can be the Ikea Highway. Nothing else seems to get built in a hurry just because it'd be useful.

Saruman

What is so special about IKEA that it warrants such.. well publicity about doom and gloom and traffic congestion??
I mean every time a big chain store or mall opens anywhere its traffic chaos for about a week, possibly two and then no problems at all.
I remember when B&Q first opened in Liffey Valley and it was hell for about a week and then nothing.

markf909

Do Ikea provide flat pack motorways or metros?

We could do with a quick roll out.

mike65

I'd have stuck it out past Naas on its own 'campus'

Mike.

mickoneill30

Saruman wrote:

What is so special about IKEA that it warrants such.. well publicity about doom and gloom and traffic congestion??

It's Ireland. We like doom and gloom about everything. Does anybody have any numbers of how many cars will be going to Ballymun for Ikea or is everybody just assuming that there will be 1000s of cars per hour going there?

I used to live in Sydney. There's an Ikea pretty close to the city centre of Sydney. I never had problems parking there (and it was in the basement of a shopping mall). I didn't see thousands of people their either. From my experiences in it the furniture was very, very average. Cheap but quite crappy (about a standard <= Argos). In my time in Sydney (5 years) I visited it twice and all we generally bought were glasses or cutlery, might have bought a lamp too. So I'd expect traffic congestion for the first few weeks (this will keep all the newspapers and negative people happy), then when people realise the quality the traffic will go to normal levels.

seamus

Saruman wrote:

What is so special about IKEA that it warrants such.. well publicity about doom and gloom and traffic congestion??
I mean every time a big chain store or mall opens anywhere its traffic chaos for about a week, possibly two and then no problems at all.
I remember when B&Q first opened in Liffey Valley and it was hell for about a week and then nothing.

All the doomsayers were quoting from someone who heard from some specialist about how bad the traffic gets around one particular store in Sweden. Nothing more.

As someone else said, it's the usual, "Ah no, that wouldn't be great" attitude. As you point out, it'll be crazy for about three weekends, they'll say "Told you so", then it'll just be another shop, and the traffic will be fine.

No matter what you try to build, someone will be unhappy about it. I swear to god, some people think we should all be living in two bed cottages, with narrow roads and 100m between houses. And of course, a tiny pub, shop and post office down the road that supplies everything :rolleyes:

Although you can't stipulate that IKEA must employ from the local area, it would only make sense for them to do so. 500 low-skill jobs in Ballymun will more than likely employ mostly local people by default.

Fratton Fred

I do like the bit about a shuttle bus as well. Because everyone nips out to buy a new table, settee and standard lamp on the 49A:D

spockety

Fratton Fred wrote:

I do like the bit about a shuttle bus as well. Because everyone nips out to buy a new table, settee and standard lamp on the 49A:D

I would imagine that in the short term that is more about giving their (presumably) hundreds of local staff an easy way to get to work instead of clogging the local roads with cars. Short to medium term a bus service to IKEA in conjunction with a home delivery service will reduce the reliance on cars for people who want to shop there. It was also stressed that IKEA must have an online shop in place within a year, so that people who want to shop there don't even have to physically go into the place.

mackerski

ManAboutCouch wrote:

Another condition is that there won't be any free parking at the store.

There's an example of applied Irish genius. A measure that will annoy the customers while bringing no benefit whatsoever.

corktina

IF its possible to speed up the M50 works to this extent by throwing money at it....WHY ARENT THE GOVT ALREADY DOING THIS???? it would benefit a large percentage of the population directly and the whole country indirectly.

spockety

mackerski wrote:

There's an example of applied Irish genius. A measure that will annoy the customers while bringing no benefit whatsoever.

I would imagine it will stop people using it as a P+R for Metro North.

OTK

mackerski wrote:

There's an example of applied Irish genius. A measure that will annoy the customers while bringing no benefit whatsoever.

On the contrary, it encourages people to use other modes of transport to get to IKEA. This is a benefit for everyone.

murphaph

Saruman wrote:

I remember when B&Q first opened in Liffey Valley and it was hell for about a week and then nothing.

I was trying to remember if this was all in my imagination but obviously not. There were people claiming it would wreak havoc (even moreso) with west Dublin traffic.

zuutroy

OTK wrote:

On the contrary, it encourages people to use other modes of transport to get to IKEA. This is a benefit for everyone.

And then carry home the giant wardrobe on the 17A?!
I've lived nead two in my time...The one in Holland near Arnhem was a traffic nightmare any time I went, and the one near me now near Zaventem airport in Brussels causes absolutely no problems whatsover, even though its on a single lane road with lots of other big shops near.
Putting one at that site in Ballymun, will cause an absolute nightmare on Saturday and Sunday afternoons IMO. I lived in Beaumont for 25 years so I know the area well. I would envisage Santry Avenue being a disaster area, and the problems will merge with Omni Park traffic.
Can't see the M50 traffic being too severely affected.

edanto

Well hell, if that's their opening offer, why don't the council push for more. Going on the figures above, if the store opens in 2008, instead of late 2010, they would take in about €450m extra. Assuming a profit of 15%, why not ask them for about €40m and put that into building some park and rides and special bus services to alleviate the traffic.

I don't think the traffic impact of IKEA will be as bad as the naysayers make out, but I think for once the government should make a deal with a corporation that benefits us instead of treating us like idiots (e.g toll bridge deals or corrib gas).

OTK

zuutroy wrote:

And then carry home the giant wardrobe on the 17A?!

No, if you use public transport to visit IKEA, you use their home delivery service to get your wardrobe/kitchen/bed/sofa home. It doesn't take that much imagination.

zuutroy

OTK wrote:

No, if you use public transport to visit IKEA, you use their home delivery service to get your wardrobe/kitchen/bed/sofa home. It doesn't take that much imagination.

It's very expensive. Here most people come in a rented van, or you can rent a Citroen Berlingo or some such at IKEA for 5 euro an hour to cart your stuff home. Public transport really isn't an option for anyone who's not on the north side of Dublin, given the location.

OTK

zuutroy wrote:

It's very expensive. Here most people come in a rented van, or you can rent a Citroen Berlingo or some such at IKEA for 5 euro an hour to cart your stuff home.

The price of the delivery service could be set below cost as a planning condition.

zuutroy wrote:

Public transport really isn't an option for anyone who's not on the north side of Dublin, given the location.

Providing that the transport 21 projects are completed, then this site will be on the highest frequency rail service in the country, with access to the city centre within 17 minutes and connections to two DART lines and two luas lines

dowlingm

At IKEAs in Toronto they have very cheap food in the restaurant

They also do a shuttle bus to the subway but I don't know how many use it. There's a lot of small knickknacks at IKEA - light bulbs, curtains, floor mats etc. that if you saw the right thing in a flyer you might take pub trans but we never have.

Aquavid

Deep in the planning conditions is a bit about any profits from the charge for car-parking to be used to subsadise the home delivery service for those who arrive by public transport.

Aquavid

zuutroy

dowlingm wrote:

At IKEAs in Toronto they have very cheap food in the restaurant

They also do a shuttle bus to the subway but I don't know how many use it. There's a lot of small knickknacks at IKEA - light bulbs, curtains, floor mats etc. that if you saw the right thing in a flyer you might take pub trans but we never have.

Whereabouts is the one in Toronto? Apparently in most countries IKEA sells more food than any other resaurant or some such crazy stat...mmmm 50c hot dogs!

bk

Aquavid wrote:

Deep in the planning conditions is a bit about any profits from the charge for car-parking to be used to subsadise the home delivery service for those who arrive by public transport.

That is really good.

I can't understand how short sighted some people are about people using public transport to get there, we are not all obsessed by our cars.

I'm a perfect example, moving into new apartment, but no car, so I spent the last week on bus and Luas visiting various furniture stores (Airside retail park, etc.). Have ordered all my furniture, delivery isn't that expensive.

BTW Dunnes Stores has excellent quality beds at the moment, cheap, 25% off and free delivery

I'd imagine IKEA would be similar to what Dunnes is like, but way larger.

jjbrien

zuutroy wrote:

Whereabouts is the one in Toronto? Apparently in most countries IKEA sells more food than any other resaurant or some such crazy stat...mmmm 50c hot dogs!

Nobody uses the shuttle from the subway in Toronto as Leslie subway is about 100m from the store its quicker walking to the subway than waiting for the shuttle.

dowlingm

jj - it might be 100m along Sheppard from the subway to the entrance to the campus but it's another 200m from IKEA's front door out to Sheppard

point taken on the shuttle though.

zuutroy - IKEA Sheppard's street address is at 15 Provost Drive, the Etobicoke one is at 1475 The Queensway and there's one in Vaughan and one in Burlington.

jjbrien

The $1 breakfast was great when I had very little money I would go there just for that as I lived quite close to it.

parsi

Saruman wrote:

What is so special about IKEA that it warrants such.. well publicity about doom and gloom and traffic congestion??
I mean every time a big chain store or mall opens anywhere its traffic chaos for about a week, possibly two and then no problems at all.
I remember when B&Q first opened in Liffey Valley and it was hell for about a week and then nothing.

I think the planners should be applauded for thinking a bit about the effects of congestion. Better planning would ease the heavy congestion that bedevils Blanch and Liffey Valley. Better planning would have eased the congestion that bedevils Mahon Point on Saturdays and Sundays.

Ikea stores do attract traffic. Certainly the one we visited a few times in Nantes had mad busy carparks (and a tram stop which was handy to use after the shopping) and this was midweek.