IKEA has 51 stores across the United States. Why does the NC Triangle have none?

Word of IKEA coming to the former Northgate Mall in Durham sparked a strong reaction on Reddit last week — specifically on the day the news published: April 1. As most commenters under the online post rightly deduced, the report was an April Fools’ Day hoax.

So the wait continues.

By population, it’s an outlier that the North Carolina Triangle lacks an IKEA. The list of comparable metro areas without the Swedish furniture chain is very short. Nashville, New Orleans, Cleveland and Buffalo are among the other large U.S. cities with no traditional stores, but each at least offers IKEA pick-up sites for customers who order online. Greater Raleigh and Durham, with their combined two million-plus residents, have neither.

It’s not for lack of trying. In the late 2000s, around 3,200 people signed an online petition to bring an IKEA to the Triangle. A Durham resident at the time collected 3,000 signatures on a separate paper petition. Instead, IKEA opened its first North Carolina store in Charlotte in 2009. Norfolk, Virginia, got the next nearest store 10 years later.

IKEA once seemed destined to place a big box store between Durham and Raleigh. In 2017, the popular ready-to-assemble furniture seller announced plans to replace the vacant Sears and Macy’s at Cary Towne Center. This proposal had widespread community support; the mall was struggling, and IKEA’s stadium-sized retail space was a desirable anchor. Later that year, the Cary Town Council unanimously green-lit the project’s rezoning.

Then in 2018, IKEA backed out.

“When I asked whether there was anything Cary could do to influence IKEA’s decision, I was told that there was nothing — not even an incentive would make a difference,” Cary Town Manager Sean Stegall told The News & Observer at the time. “IKEA said they had an extremely positive view of and experience with the Town Council, our staff, the mall site, and Cary as a whole.”

So why did IKEA pass on Cary? The company told Cary leaders the area was too suburban.

IKEA opened its first U.S. location in 1985 and today has 51 stores across the country. While known for labyrinthine layouts on the outskirts of cities, the furniture seller pivoted in recent years to opening smaller downtown stores. In 2018, IKEA told the N&O it was making this shift “to meet today’s customers where they are in today’s fast-changing retail environment.”

Jump six years and there’s even less industry desire for large stores with high inventory, says Jeremy Petranka, an economics professor at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, as modern technology has made supply chains “better, cheaper and faster.”

Though COVID interrupted this progress, it appears IKEA has continued to shift away from massive brick-and-mortar locations (where shoppers would spend hours) and toward digital shopping experiences.

Last year, the company opened 71 new sales locations worldwide. It says most “were small stores” and plan-and-order points, which are where IKEA specialists help customers order furniture that is then shipped to their homes or collected at IKEA pick-up sites.

Are downtown Raleigh or Durham candidates?

Last April, IKEA announced it would spend $2.2 billion over three years to expand across the United States, where it is reporting record revenues. That month, the N&O asked the company whether this growth would include Triangle cities.

“We are excited to bring IKEA closer to customers across the US,” a spokesperson for IKEA North America emailed. “We are early in the planning stages and look forward to sharing more details on our expansion plans at a later stage.”

In early December, the N&O reached out to the company again with a similar inquiry. By then, IKEA had launched additional plan-and-order points in Maryland, Virginia and Texas.

“We look forward to sharing more about where we’re expanding soon, and in the meantime, can share that we’re going where the demand is,” a spokesperson for IKEA U.S. said. “We want to make sure our new locations and formats complement our existing channels in a seamless way and give customers many more options to engage with IKEA.”

This January, IKEA U.S. publicized four new plan-and-order points with pick-up locations, one in Austin, Texas, another in the Atlanta metro area, and a pair near Los Angeles.

On Tuesday, the N&O asked the Raleigh and Durham planning departments whether there have been any new development discussions with IKEA. Both said no.

“I continue to hear rumors, but they haven’t kicked the tires on any sites in Raleigh since the Cary thing,” Raleigh planning director Patrick Young said. He noted IKEA had looked at a few Raleigh locations before the company zeroed in on Cary Towne Center.

“I think we will get one eventually,” Young said. “But they really have a high bar.”

Petranka hypothesizes the Triangle was never an ideal place to land a traditional big box IKEA. The company seeks out markets with large densities of young transient professionals who are willing to shell out for uniquely named furniture that isn’t likely to last a lifetime. Greater Durham and Raleigh, which is more spread out, doesn’t have the density of Charlotte.

Plus, with the Queen City a few hours west and Norfolk a few hours northeast, the Triangle may have gotten crowded out, Petranka said.

But could the community support a new, more tech-focused IKEA plan-and-order site?

“There are definitely enough people in this area and enough disposable income in this area that having a smaller footprint, even on higher interest rates, could make a lot of sense,” he said.

Anna Johnson and Richard Stradling contributed reporting.

NC Reality Check is an N&O series holding those in power accountable and shining a light on public issues that affect the Triangle or North Carolina. Have a suggestion for a future story? Email realitycheck@newsobserver.com