Community Impact
IKEA's goals of sustainability and environmental design in their merchandise have sometimes been at odds with the impact a new IKEA store can have on a community.
- In September 2004, when IKEA offered a limited number of free $150 vouchers at the opening of a new store in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, three people were crushed to death in a stampede that followed the store's opening.
- IKEA has demolished historic buildings in at least one case for a parking area. (At the College Park, Maryland, USA, store there is an interactive digital display which tells the history of a tavern which used to exist where the store is currently located.)
- IKEA was refused planning permission for a future store in the United Kingdom in 2004 (to be based in Stockport, near Manchester) by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. It applied for judicial review but lost in 2005. However, they later received permission to build a store within the Manchester area a few miles from the originally planned site in Ashton-under-Lyne. An estimated £10,000 was spent on traffic policing, and even more on rerouting traffic from the M60 motorway around Ashton.
- After viewing the 100-foot-tall (30 m) sign of an IKEA under construction near Portland International Airport, Randy Leonard, the city commissioner in charge of sign permits in Portland, Oregon, placed a moratorium on all pending and future sign permits in the area.
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