Home furnishings retailer IKEA has hired a manager for its Portland store, expected to open this summer, and has started hiring the first of an expected 400 employees in the area, the company will announce today.
Ken Bodeen, a native of Hermiston, will manage the Portland store, which will be the 31st in the Swedish company's chain of more than 250 worldwide. Bodeen has been with the company since 1999 and worked for another retailer for nine years before that. He most recently managed the IKEA store in Burbank, Calif.
At the Portland store's 19-acre site near Portland International Airport, construction crews have already raised the tilt-up concrete walls. The company's standard blue-and-yellow paint will soon follow, said Joseph Roth, director of expansion public affairs.
The 280,000-square-foot store will be smaller than the 350,000-square-foot store in Renton, Wash., the closest one to the Portland area. The Portland store will have the same goods as that store, however, Roth promised.
IKEA hews closely to the idea that all its stores can sell the same goods, whether they're in Beijing or Burbank. Its in-store restaurants all sell the same traditional Swedish foods, including meatballs and herring.
Some of those ideas may go over well in eco-friendly Portland, such as encouraging shoppers and employees to use mass transit and charging for shopping bags to encourage conservation.
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