IKEA has bought a 16.5 acre site at Lakeside, West Thurrock for its proposed third London store from Lakeside Trading Estate at an undisclosed price.
The Swedish furniture retailer has already submitted a planning application to Thurrock Borough Council for a store of 270,000 sq ft (25,083 m2) with 1,450 customer parking spaces.
The site, at junctions 30 and 31 of the M25, is almost adjacent to the Lakeside Shopping Centre and the Costco Warehouse Club.
IKEA property manager Paul Jacobs said: “We are delighted to announce our proposals for a new IKEA store at West Thurrock. The Lakeside location benefits from very good strategic communications and will complement our two existing London stores at Croydon and Brent Park.”
The new store will employ around 325 people and will encourage the development of surplus employment land which has been vacant for years, he said.
The retailer is considering plans to create a distribution headquarters of at least 100,000 sq ft on an adjacent 10 acre site.
IKEA will continue to look at building stores on other similar sites, said its adviser Havills.
