Swedish furniture and home décor retailer Ikea will build its third local store in Timisoara, in Western Romania.

In this sense, the company has requested the Town Hall of Dumbravita, a commune close to the city of Timisoara, to approve the building of a roundabout that would allow access to the future store, according to local Uct-media.com. Moreover, representatives of the local authorities also announced that the urbanism certificate for the new store would be issued soon.

The Ikea store will be located on Petre Tutea boulevard at the intersection with E671, Uct-media.com reported.

Update: In a statement, Ikea SEE said it plans to open stores in Timisoara, Brasov and Cluj, based on the available land, and that it would communicate further details once it reaches a concrete conclusion.

"Finding the right plots in the Romanian cities part of our expansion plan is a priority for us. Until then, we have an increasingly popular online order service available to people all over Romania and we have plans to develop besides the classical stores, a multi-channel environment with new sales channels and formats supporting new consumer behaviours and trends," said Viviana Pavel, real estate and development manager Ikea South-East Europe (Croatia, Romania, Serbia Slovenia, Ukraine).

"At the moment, we are working on finding the most suitable plots for Ikea stores in the country and the most relevant solutions for multi-channel formats. As we previously mentioned, the following three cities where Ikea will open stores in Romania are: Timișoara, Braşov and Cluj, where the construction depends on the available land, and also by the support that Ikea will receive from authorities in the planning and permitting process. When we will have new concrete details, we will communicate them."

Ikea is currently working on its second local store, which is also located in Bucharest. The store is being built in the Theodor Pallady area, in Eastern Bucharest, and should be completed by this summer. The other Ikea store is located in the north part of the city, in Baneasa area.

Ikea first presented its expansion plans in Romania in the fall of 2016, when it announced its second store in Bucharest and said it also plans to expand to Timisoara, Brasov, and Cluj-Napoca in the following years. Then, in early-2017, the company announced it plans total investments of EUR 500 million to reach a number of nine stores in Romania.

Ikea recorded sales of EUR 128 million in Romania in the fiscal year ended August 31, 2017, up 14% year-on-year. Over 3.3 million people visited the Ikea store in Northern Bucharest between September 2016 and August 2017.

Irina Marica, irina.marica@romania-insider.com