BY AUSTIN LYNCH
Leading Fermanagh business, Fisher Engineering have recently secured a lucrative contract to provide the steelwork for the new £50 Million IKEA store in Belfast.
Building work is well underway at Ireland's first IKEA store, which is located at Hollywood Exchange in Belfast, and the Ballinamallard based firm have secured the contract to provide the 2000 tonnes of structural steelwork required to create the framework for the 29,000 sq. feet store and adjacent car park.
Having secured the steelwork contract, Fisher Engineering is now working alongside project construction team, PCM Management who have completed several IKEA stores throughout the UK. Fisher Engineering are well used to being involved with high profile building projects across the North. They have undertaken steel fabrication works for a number of Northern Ireland signature projects, including the Belfast Waterfront Hall and the Belfast Odyssey complex. Fisher Engineering Project Director, Ian Cochrane is in charge of work at the IKEA site and says the company is delighted to have won such a prestigious contract. "Construction work is progressing extremely well. We expect to be on site for a total of 20 weeks, working primarily on the store but also on erecting steelwork for the customer car park." This will be Ireland's first IKEA store and the project represents an investment in excess of £50 million. The new store is located on a 14.5 acre site at Holywood Exchange in East Belfast. The two storey central core of the building will feature a first floor showroom and 500 seater customer restaurant within the Market Hall area, children's crèche facilities and entrance area located on the ground floor. Adjacent to the Market Hall will be a retail warehouse, customer checkouts, parking area, Swedish speciality store and a bistro. Externally, IKEA will build a children's play area as part of the overall landscaping, providing spaces for 1,455 cars. Paul Reid, IKEA Belfast store manager, welcomed the news that construction work is on target and looked forward to the store opening its doors towards the end of 2007.
"The new Belfast store will bring the core IKEA concept of affordable design to Northern Ireland for the first time ever. IKEA's aim is to offer a wide range of well designed, functional home furnishing products for all areas of your home at prices so low that as many people as possible will be able to afford them."
The new IKEA store in Belfast will carry 9,500 products in a unique layout which will allow customers to view over 55 fully furnished room and home layouts showing the IKEA product range in home context.
