Ikea Goes Urban With First High Street Store in Hamburg

Ikea became the world’s biggest home-furnishings retailer by getting shoppers to drive to sprawling hyper-centers on the outskirts of cities from Stockholm to Shanghai. From today, residents in Hamburg can just walk in off the high street.

The Swedish chain opened its first city-center store in the district of Altona, the most westerly of Hamburg’s seven boroughs, in a pilot project targeting a rising number of urbanites who dread the long haul to its traditional outlets with their distinctive blue and yellow design. The store opening, which is costing the company 80 million euros ($109 million), is an experiment for Ikea, breaking new ground in its largest market, said Johannes Ferber, the managing director who’s spearheading Ikea’s expansion in Germany.