{"id":15891,"date":"2025-12-02T11:53:30","date_gmt":"2025-12-01T22:53:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=15891"},"modified":"2025-12-02T11:53:30","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T22:53:30","slug":"ikea-opening-day-nearby-businesses-preparing-for-mayhem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=15891","title":{"rendered":"Ikea opening day: Nearby businesses preparing for mayhem"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Auckland, businesses near the new Ikea store are steeling themselves for a stampede to the\u00a0homeware giant’s opening on Thursday<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Traffic experts have run their numbers and expect crowds of up to 20,000 a day, with a\u00a040-minute crawl on the nearby motorway<\/a>\u00a0and another 40 to find a car park.<\/p>\n

Ikea’s\u00a0three-storey blue box<\/a>\u00a0consumes a whole block at Mt Wellington, with 544 carparks, close to 37 bike racks and 28 motorbike bays – for those not taking home the flat packs.<\/p>\n

Just a few doors down, Cloud 777 Cafe manager Vicky John is expecting local roads to be a jam.<\/p>\n

“I know it’s going to be hectic around this little area, it’s already crazy as it is. With\u00a0Ikea opening<\/a>\u00a0it’s just going to create more traffic jams.”<\/p>\n

She starts work at 5am and is worried traffic will be bad when she finishes mid-afternoon.<\/p>\n

They’re already serving customers who work at Ikea, who describe the 34,000 square metre store as gigantic.<\/p>\n

“It’s next level off the charts. A lot of the staff that are working in there are my customers, so the builders, the electricians are coming in and they’re already telling me it’s next level.”<\/p>\n

A strip of retailers across the road from the new-comer are preparing to guard their customer carparks – Ikea’s carpark opens at 8.30am on Thursday, the store opens at 11am.<\/p>\n

An extra carpark will be available to manage overflows in Ikea’s parking lot to accommodate another 400 vehicles nearby, on Carbine Road.<\/p>\n

Ikea said it’s not possible to camp in their carpark and anyone attempting an overnighter will be moved on.<\/p>\n

Computer Lounge sales director Alex van der Linde said he’ll be leaving home at least an hour earlier than usual to try to beat traffic.<\/p>\n

“We’re all prepared to be coming in early and just accounting for the additional traffic, I anticipate that the majority of Carbine Road is going to be on gridlock for most of the day.”<\/p>\n

He said they hope to get a boost in business from Ikea customers.<\/p>\n

“We expect that we’ll have a lot more eyes on our business as people are driving past, even though they’re obviously going to Ikea. We’re doing what we can to expose ourselves a little bit more to the street, working on signage, that sort of thing.”<\/p>\n

Next door, Rock Shop branch manager Michael Greenwood said he’ll still drive to work.<\/p>\n

“I’ll be allowing myself quite a bit of extra time to get to work, especially in the first week of it opening when there will be a lot of people wanting to go have a look, everybody at the same time.<\/p>\n

“In terms of how it will effect our business, we don’t really know. It may impact us for a period of time but it will also, in the longer term, benefit us.”<\/p>\n

Auckland Transport’s operations centre will be a hive of activity when Ikea opens and manager Claire Howard said anyone heading to Ikea’s opening should expect delays.<\/p>\n

“Around that Mt Wellington area it is already a very busy area. We’ve been planning for a large amount of congestion and traffic delays around that Mt Wellington Highway, and around Ikea especially where people are coming into the car parking and coming out.”<\/p>\n

The motorway interchange at Mt Wellington will be a pinch point.<\/p>\n

“Worst case scenario we’re looking at potentially 40 minutes to get off the motorway… and people could spend up to an hour trying to get parking.”<\/p>\n

She said they’ve learned from Costco’s opening – and expect Saturdays to be busiest.<\/p>\n

Even though she’s a few doors down, John said she won’t be going near Ikea this week.<\/p>\n

“It’s just going to be too crazy and being a Thursday, one of our busiest days, and with that opening next door to me there’s just no way we’re going to go.”<\/p>\n

Auckland Transport is encouraging people to bus or train to Ikea to avoid traffic delays.<\/p>\n

Source: RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Auckland, businesses near the new Ikea store are steeling themselves for a stampede to the\u00a0homeware giant’s opening on Thursday. Traffic experts have run their numbers and expect crowds of up to 20,000 a day, with a\u00a040-minute crawl on the nearby motorway\u00a0and another 40 to find a car park. Ikea’s\u00a0three-storey blue box\u00a0consumes a whole block […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":15892,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15891"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15891\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15893,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15891\/revisions\/15893"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}