The Brooklyn Paper: SNA Newspaper of the Year, 2007

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Inside Ikea’s blue and yellow fortress

By Mike McLaughlin
The Brooklyn Paper
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The Brooklyn Paper / Jeff Bachner
Miles of empty shelves are waiting to be stocked at the new Ikea in Red Hook.
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The Brooklyn Paper / Jeff Bachner
The new Ikea store in Red Hook, which is expected to open in August, has a view of the surrounding neighborhood — and the Manhattan skyline.

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The Mongstad mirrors will be on the second floor, near the windows with those killer views of Manhattan. The kid’s play room will be near the front door. And over there, near the 1,400-car parking lot, is where you’ll eat those Swedish meatballs.

Yes, Ikea is getting closer to opening its Red Hook store.

The Brooklyn Paper got an advance look last week, about five months before the Swedish furniture giant hopes to sell its first Morker lamps, Udden kitchen systems and Bastis cat-scratching posts.

The far-from-completed store could use, well, some home furnishing of its own.

But it’s coming along.

Already, the company has imported veteran manager Mike Baker, who has successfully opened stores in Toronto and Shanghai, to run the Brooklyn site, which, in addition to the massive parking lot, will have a public esplanade and free weekend water taxi service.

Baker and his team are busy finding 500 minions to stock the shelves, work the checkout registers and do everything else to keep the store humming. Red Hook residents have had a head start in the application process, but it’s not yet known how many will be hired.

Of course, there’s one way to get a leg up, Baker joked.

“You don’t get a job if you don’t eat herring,” he said, referring to the infamous Scandinavian delicacy.

©2008 The Brooklyn Paper

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