BURBANK, CA—It's officially happening. Ikea has tapped contractor VCC to build its planned retaildevelopment in Burbank, less than a mile from its current location. At 456,000 square feet, the new store will be a larger replacement for its current Burbank retail store, which is the furniture retailer's oldest store in the Western US. Pending entitlements and approvals, the project will break ground in the fall 2015 and will open in spring 2017.

Located at 850 San Fernando Blvd., the 456,000-square-foot development will sit on 22 acres with 1,700 parking spaces, making it one of the largest Ikea stores in the nation. By comparison, the current Burbank location sits on 6.4 acres and measures 242,000 square feet. The new store will have 50 inspirational room-settings, three model home interiors, and a larger Swedish restaurant. It will also be child friendly with a Children's Ikea showroom, a supervised children's play area and baby-care rooms. Just like the current store, the new Ikea will have a solar photovoltaic array on its roof, or something similar, to generate clean power, a trademark of the company. It will house 400 workers from the original store, and will generate even more sales revenue for the city and local schools.

“A lot of big box retailers are actually decreasing in size because they can more densely fill their location while maintaining the same sales and paying less dollars in rent,” Justin Mendelson, a senior director at Charles Dunn Co. unrelated to the deal and an expert on big box retail, tells GlobeSt.com. “Now, what is interesting is that Ikea is expanding their footprint as opposed to downsizing. That is unique in the big box market right now, and I think it speaks to the Burbank submarket as a whole, and it certainly speaks to the demand. I think you are going to see an influx of consumers going to Burbank to spend and, in doing so, boosting the economy.”

VCC is a well-established retail contractor, and ranked one of the top 5 contractors in the country for retail renovation and construction. GreenbergFarrow, an Atlanta-based architect, is the project architect, and several other companies are involved in the massive project, including Park & Velayos, local land use counsel; VTN West, civil engineer; Gibson Transportation and Raju Assoc., traffic consultants; SCI Engineering, testing and inspection services; GeoKinetics, geotechnical & environmental engineers; Geosyntec and Rutan & Tucker, environmental consultants; and B.J. Palmer & Associate. VCC and Ikea did not respond to a request for comment.

Ikea purchased the larger site at 850 San Fernando Blvd. from Crown Realty and Development, which also owns the Burbank Town Center, a mall located directly adjacent to Ikea's current Burbank store. The a sale transaction included a stipulation that Crown Realty would buy Ikea's current location for a sale's price of $1.3 million.