The investment will still go ahead but an IKEA spokesman today confirmed that due to the scale of its complex project the store and associated shopping centre now will open in 2015, not in 2014 as originally planned.
The investment of €200 million and the goal to create 3,000 jobs is the same but the Swedish multinational is still in talks with the newly elected board of Loulé council and has had to move the opening date, “Recruitment will begin, probably in late 2014, but this still depends on the progress of the work," commented the IKEA spokesman.
The store is but one part of the development as a shopping centre and other commercial space is planned. "We have different methods for different projects. In some cases everything has all opened at the same time but in others the store opened first and the commercial centre a few months later," the source said.
"When we start work, we will have a better idea of timings” revealed IKEA Portugal, which reaffirmed that “the store in Loulé is a priority for the group."
The initiative was given the go ahead almost a year ago by Loulé council which is to gain by some improvements to a local school and various road connections that would have to be built anyway to allow access to the store.
Complaints over the re-designation of some ecological land came to nothing so the only thing holding back the project is bureaucracy.
