After what seems like — and actually was — years of waiting, we have an opening date for the new downtown IKEA store in San Francisco.

Last week, the company's affiliate Ingka Centres teased out some more info about the rest of the planned mall surrounding the store, now dubbed Meeting Place. And today they put out a release announcing that the IKEA store will open in two weeks, on August 23 at 11 a.m.

"We are so excited to open the doors of our new IKEA store to our neighbors in the San Francisco area,” says Arda Akalin, IKEA San Francisco Market Manager, in a statement. “We appreciate the excitement and support from the community and can’t wait for our customers to experience the new store full of affordable home furnishings and solutions that reflect who San Franciscans are and how they live."

The 52,000-square-foot store has a smaller footprint than the typical, suburban, big-box IKEA store, and therefore you won't be able to haul off most furniture purchases right when you buy them in-store. But there will be online ordering and delivery options, and for in-store purchase there will be "2,500 smaller home furnishing accessories and special collection items that will focus on affordability, sustainability and small-space living."

IKEA's total product range is about 9,000 products, and thousands will be on display to touch and sit on in this store.

Also — and this is great news for everyone who has some regretted IKEA purchase they'd love to offload — they have a sustainability program in which they'll buy back "select" furniture items for in-store credit.

"IKEA Buy Back & resell service [will be offered] for IKEA Family members looking to retire some of their IKEA furniture and help pave the way towards sustainable living," the company says.

IKEA considers itself having been part of the San Francisco market for over 20 years, since opening the Emeryville store in 2000. A store in Palo Alto followed in 2003.

But the Swedish company has only been opening these "city format" stores for a few years — and they only opened their first one in Stockholm in 2022.

The release today does not refer to the capital-M Meeting Place that we learned was the new name for the mall last week — but it does refer to this store being part of a "new meeting place" being run by Ingka Centres. The top floor of the complex, as we learned last week, will be a coworking concept called Hej! Workshop ("Hej," which is pronounced "hay," means "hello" in Swedish).

The coworking space doubles as a showroom for the IKEA for Business product line, and it will be open in early 2024.

There will also be a second-floor food court, and we've yet to learn what else may be going in to the center — besides, maybe, this upscale putt-putt restaurant. All of that is expect to be open by next spring.

Now, let's just hope they've put more thought into security and stuff, since that Whole Foods two blocks up didn't fare so well (though it also maybe might reopen at some point).

Previously: IKEA Store to Open On Market Street With New Co-Working Space On Top Floor; Mall Opening Next Year

Photo courtesy of IKEA