immo!nvest – Die Plattform für Standorte und Immobilien

Tag: IKEA

  • IKEA celebrates topping-out ceremony in Valais

    IKEA celebrates topping-out ceremony in Valais

    IKEA Switzerland, headquartered in Spreitenbach, is building its first store in the canton of Valais. After only seven months of construction, the topping-out ceremony was celebrated on the building site in Les Morand near Riddes with around 150 construction workers and representatives of authorities, partners and IKEA employees, according to a media release.

    Since the groundbreaking ceremony in March, the shell for the 23,000 square meters of store space on two floors on the total 49,000 square meters of land has been completed on schedule. In total, the investment amounts to more than 100 million Swiss francs. After opening in 2024, IKEA will then have ten stores and two planning studios in Switzerland with around 3300 employees.

    This will be IKEA’s first foray into the Swiss mountain region with a large store, according to a media release. “The opening of the IKEA store in spring 2024 is a great opportunity for the municipality of Riddes and of particular economic importance for the entire canton of Valais,” Riddes municipal president Christel Duc is quoted as saying.

    Recruitment for around 200 jobs at IKEA Riddes has been underway since September. The most modern and sustainable IKEA store in Switzerland is being built there, featuring a zero-waste approach and a huge solar installation, among other features, the statement said. The next steps include technical installations inside the building and the removal of the unloading ramps for the storage racks; the storage and self-service hall is the first area to be built. At the end of November, the construction of the furniture exhibition and market hall departments will begin in stages. The installation of the photovoltaic system is expected to start in November, once the roof is completed.

  • IKEA expands in Chur and Valais

    IKEA expands in Chur and Valais

    IKEA is opening new locations in Switzerland after ten years. There will be a planning studio for customers in Chur and a furniture store of the usual size in Riddes. According to the press release , the 565 square meter planning studio with various model rooms is to open in autumn in the Steinbock shopping center in Chur. It should become a kind of mini-IKEA, it is said. The focus is on the consulting and planning service for visitors and business customers.

    At the same time, Spreitbach-based IKEA Schweiz AG will soon be submitting the building permit for its tenth store in the Valais municipality of Riddes. After the announcement of a so-called plan and order point in Bern, the expansion of the two locations is the next step in IKEA Switzerland’s expansion strategy. The most modern and greenest IKEA furniture store in Switzerland is to be built in Riddes. The opening is planned for autumn 2023. The shop will offer a wide range of sustainable products and services on around 23,000 square meters with lots of green space.

    “It’s now ten years since we opened the last IKEA store in Switzerland in Rothenburg and thus opened up Central Switzerland. With the planning studio in Chur and the store in Riddes, we are opening up two new markets in Switzerland outside of the cities,” Jessica Anderen, CEO and strategy manager at IKEA Switzerland, is quoted as saying. Today, IKEA has nine furniture stores in all parts of the country and a distribution center in Itingen BL, which handles most of the online sales.

    According to the press release, the IKEA planning studio is the first format of its kind in Switzerland. Comparable service points are only available in London, Berlin and Oslo. “We are both pleased and proud that IKEA is now offering its new service format based on selected world cities here in Chur of all places,” Frederick Widl, Head of Real Estate at AXA , is quoted as saying as the landlord.

  • New parcel logistics should relieve cities

    New parcel logistics should relieve cities

    A new pilot project by the Swiss innovation agency Innosuisse is testing an alternative distribution system for parcel shipments in Zurich. It is intended to reduce delivery traffic in cities. A media release from the Zurich University of Applied Sciences ( ZHAW ) quoted the Federal Office for Spatial Development, according to which the volume of parcels will increase by 75 percent by 2040 due to the growing online trade and the freight traffic will increase by 37 percent as a result.

    The ZHAW Institute for Sustainable Development in Winterthur is leading this project. Companies such as H&M , Zalando and Ikea are involved. In addition to the city of Zurich, the project partners are also Swiss Post , DPD and Cargo Sous Terrain . The desired solution provides for the interaction of three distribution centers, so-called hubs. The project also aims to provide cities with assessment criteria that they can use to find suitable locations.

    “Today every truck drives through town once and distributes the goods. With a hub in the city center, from which the fine distribution takes place, you can bundle much better, ”Maike Scherrer from the ZHAW is quoted as saying. A digital backbone based on artificial intelligence is to organize the shipment allocation to different means of transport in such a way that as few transport kilometers as possible are driven. Free transport capacities can be auctioned online. It is important that the distance to the home address is short so that the parcel recipients can walk to the Microhub as much as possible.

  • Sascha Zahnd is to lead digitalswitzerland

    Sascha Zahnd is to lead digitalswitzerland

    The digitalswitzerland general assembly is called upon to approve a change at the top of the location initiative: Sascha Zahnd is to take over the presidency of the executive committee on July 1, informs digitalswitzerland in a message . The Bernese succeeds Ivo Furrer. Furrer had already announced when he took office that he would give up the presidency after three years in office.

    By the end of 2020, Zahnd was "one of the closest employees of Tesla founder Elon Musk", the message further explains. At Tesla , the designated President of digitalswitzerland had acted as European boss and Vice President Global Supply Chain. Zahnd had previously worked for ETA SA Manufacture Horlogère Suisse and IKEA . He is currently active for mytheresa.com and Valora AG , among others.

    "Sascha Zahnd is one of the most impressive top managers in Switzerland with a lot of international experience," Marc Walder, founder of digitalswitzerland, is quoted in the press release. The designated president of the location initiative stands for “innovation, transformation and entrepreneurship”. According to Walder, digitalswitzerland wants to continue campaigning for the country's digital transformation. Here the pandemic "relentlessly exposed Switzerland's existing weaknesses".

    Ivo Furrer will stay on digitalswitzerland as a member of the board of directors. The vice presidency is to remain with the FDP National Council (SG) and entrepreneur Marcel Dobler.