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Ikea’s Houston-area distribution facility creates 200 jobs

November 7, 2017

The Netherlands-based furniture giant Ikea reported Nov. 7 that its two newest U.S. distribution facilities — including a Houston-area facility that previously opened — each have or will create 200 jobs.

The new centers — in Baytown’s Cedar Port Industrial Park and American Canyon, California — are customer fulfillment centers that will focus on delivering items to customers who order products online or purchase larger items at a store, according to a Nov. 7 press release.

News of the Baytown facility first broke in April 2016, and it became operational earlier this year. Ikea included the Baytown facility in the press release about the new California facility because the company had not made an official announcement regarding the Baytown facility previously, a spokeswoman confirmed. 

Ikea leased nearly 1 million square feet across two buildings for the facility in the Cedar Port Industrial Park — a 10,987-acre industrial park near the Port of Houston — in the summer of 2016. Houston-based Clay Development and Construction Inc. developed the buildings, and JLL’s Ryan Fuselier represented Ikea. 

Ikea’s lease was the biggest industrial lease signed in 2016 and shows the strength of the Port of Houston as an economic hub that brings in major international businesses, the Houston Business Journal previously reported. 

In February, Canada-based Pure Industrial Real Estate Trust (TSX: AAR.UN) inked a deal to buy the two buildings for about $63.5 million. The Class A buildings remained 100 percent leased to Ikea Distribution Services Inc., according to the REIT. 

Since then, Clay has broken ground on another speculative distribution facility, Cutten Distribution Center I, which will complete the 15-building Cutten Road Business Park that Clay acquired in 2008. 

Several factors, including Houston's rapid population growth and its access to Port Houston, are solidifying the Bayou City as a viable retail distribution hub poised to compete with Dallas, HBJ recently reported. And retailers looking to make e-commerce an increasingly large portion of their business often use Amazon's real estate footprint as a bellwether of demand, experts say. Seattle-based Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN) has been making a huge push into Houston in recent years. 

Ikea’s Baytown facility and its new California facility — which will be operational in early 2018 — will complement Ikea’s network of five regional distribution centers and “will augment the current U.S. distribution strategy and enhance the ability of IKEA to ensure product availability to customers shopping in-store or online,” according to the Nov. 7 press release.

The distribution center portion of the Baytown facility has been shipping to stores since this past April, the spokeswoman said. The customer fulfillment portion started receiving goods in September and will begin shipping to customers this month, thus fully completing the facility, she said.

Ikea also operates three distribution centers on the East Coast and two on the West Coast, according to a previous press release.

The company also has three stores in the state — in Houston, Round Rock and Frisco — with three more Texas locations coming soon. The Grand Prairie store is set to open Dec. 13, and stores are planned for Fort Worth and Live Oak in 2019.

By Olivia Pulsinelli, Houston Business Journal
https://www.bizjournals.com/houston/news/2017/11/07/ikeas-houston-area-distribution-facility-creates.html?ana=fbk