IKEA may be coming to Merriam Village

[phxcat]

Merriam Village lands a Hobby Lobby and an unnamed restaurant.

http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/b ... pment.html

You would think that Hobby Lobby would wait just a couple weeks to find out if the owner is going to have to close all of his stores before making any major decisions.

[flyingember]

Merriam Village lands a Hobby Lobby and an unnamed restaurant.

http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/b ... pment.html

You would think that Hobby Lobby would wait just a couple weeks to find out if the owner is going to have to close all of his stores before making any major decisions.

classic bluff. Just like Sue Burke.

[kcjak]

Let's see how long it takes Mission to screw up the current Hobby Lobby location with a half-assed redevelopment plan.

[mgsports]

Won't.

[chrizow]

[flyingember]

I'm questioning why they picked that spot now.

Every single afternoon from 4:30-approx 6:00 it's a huge nasty pain to drive along I-35 in that area. Adding a lot of cars causes a multi-mile backup.

Ikea is only going to make traffic worse along that area for more hours of the day. Ikea stores get 2.2 million visitors each year on average. That's a lot of cars.

My guess is 1500 cars every weekday and 6-8000 on weekends isn't unrealistic.

I question if the ramps off I-35 can handle that kind of load. That's a huge numbers of cars per hour for a ramp that can handle 30-40 cars on it at once.

[kcjak]

I agree the on/off ramps to I35 suck at Johnson Drive - especially when a train backs up traffic. But IKEA probably doesn't care if people are stuck in traffic getting to their store, as long as they eventually get in. I plan on getting off on Antioch or Metcalf or slip in the back way via SM Pkwy.

[flyingember]

But IKEA probably doesn't care if people are stuck in traffic getting to their store, as long as they eventually get in.

I bet you're partially right. They're a place there's no close alternatives to so if you're going you're definently going there.

But there is a point at which people will drive on by if they see the line going out into a through lane.

[KCMax]

Opening Sept 10

[flyingember]

Opening Sept 10

the line forms starting Sep 8.

Sheesh

[bobbyhawks]

Opening Sept 10

the line forms starting Sep 8.

Sheesh

I was in Dallas when their first IKEA opened. You would have thought someone invented a working cold fusion energy reactor the way they publicized it. It was like the President was holding up traffic, and they were sending shuttles in from the minor leage baseball stadium parking lot a few miles away.

[KCPowercat]

Opening Sept 10

the line forms starting Sep 8.

Sheesh

I was in Dallas when their first IKEA opened. You would have thought someone invented a working cold fusion energy reactor the way they publicized it. It was like the President was holding up traffic, and they were sending shuttles in from the minor leage baseball stadium parking lot a few miles away.

So bigger than a south korea baseball fan????

[loftguy]

So bigger than a south korea baseball fan????

This has been nearly as bad an indicator of civic status as was voting down the streetcar.

[mgsports]

So is Taco Bell that will be between it and Jack in the Box.

[bbqboy]

What?

[awynhaus]

The city of Merriam has known for a long time (how many years) that this was coming and yet they have made no changes whatsoever to the roads leading into that area. Shawnee Mission Parkway is a mess at rush hour as is Johnson Drive. Someone mentioned that I-35 is a mess from 4:30 - 6pm which I can attest to as well. Hot mess doesn't even begin to cover what the situation will be like on September 10th.

The roads needed to be widened to accomodate all the traffic that will be coming in and out. Possibly the highway needed some sort of restructuring of exits maybe to move traffic away from the folks who don't want to go to IKEA. Also, the main road into IKEA (Eby) that's two lanes...which is going to be plugged from open to close daily. Also - where are these people going to be parking?

I live in this area and thank goodness I won't have to be traveling to south Overland Park after the end of August on a regular basis and have to deal with that mess.

[mistervinix]

It's interesting that Merriam is reopening the Johnson Drive bridge over Turkey Creek with just a few weeks to spare before this traffic nightmare begins...

http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/ar ... 25404.html

[awynhaus]

I was over that way on Thursday and it was still all blocked. Glad that they finished something!

[grovester]

The city of Merriam has known for a long time (how many years) that this was coming and yet they have made no changes whatsoever to the roads leading into that area. Shawnee Mission Parkway is a mess at rush hour as is Johnson Drive. Someone mentioned that I-35 is a mess from 4:30 - 6pm which I can attest to as well. Hot mess doesn't even begin to cover what the situation will be like on September 10th.

The roads needed to be widened to accomodate all the traffic that will be coming in and out. Possibly the highway needed some sort of restructuring of exits maybe to move traffic away from the folks who don't want to go to IKEA. Also, the main road into IKEA (Eby) that's two lanes...which is going to be plugged from open to close daily. Also - where are these people going to be parking?

I live in this area and thank goodness I won't have to be traveling to south Overland Park after the end of August on a regular basis and have to deal with that mess.

Not sure what Merriam could do, both Johnson Drive and SM Parkway are constrained by bridge width at I35. The whole area will be a cluster no doubt, but that's what they signed up for (and the tax receipts). I'm hoping my better half will finally want to pack up and move downtown after a couple of years of the traffic!

[mgsports]

Just that Taco Bell will be relocating from Shawnee Mission Parkway in Mission to this property.