IKEA Georgetown

IKEA’s Georgetown presence at 3307 M Street NW represents the Swedish furniture brand’s urban format, which differs from the full warehouse stores in the suburban locations in its smaller footprint and its focus on the planning studio and order service that the city customer needs in the neighborhood retail setting. The M Street address in Georgetown’s upper commercial block provides the IKEA planning studio with the commercial position in the main Georgetown shopping corridor.

IKEA has been producing flat-pack furniture for the global market since Ingvar Kamprad founded the company in Sweden in 1943, developing the business model that makes modern-design furniture accessible at the mass-market price point by having the customer assemble the furniture rather than the manufacturer or retailer. The IKEA model’s contribution to the democratization of design, which has been the subject of considerable academic and popular attention, is in its systematic application of the Scandinavian design tradition to a product line that the middle-class consumer in any country can afford.

The Georgetown planning studio format provides the IKEA customer with the kitchen and room planning services that the brand’s online and in-store planning tools support: the customer who wants to plan an IKEA kitchen for a Georgetown apartment or townhouse can work with the studio’s planning tools to design the kitchen to the room’s specific dimensions, selecting the cabinet fronts, handles, and interior fittings that the IKEA SEKTION and PAX systems include.

The M Street address at 3307 is in the upper commercial block toward the Georgetown University end of M Street. Hours run from 10am most days and 11am Sunday. The IKEA Georgetown format provides the neighborhood retail access to the IKEA product catalog without requiring the drive to the suburban warehouse store that the full IKEA format demands. The Georgetown customer who wants to plan a kitchen renovation, specify a wardrobe from the PAX system, or order the Kallax shelf unit in a specific size can accomplish the same design planning and ordering at the M Street location that the warehouse store provides, in the Georgetown neighborhood rather than at the Woodbridge or College Park store locations.

The IKEA democratic design model, which has consistently provided the most financially accessible version of the Scandinavian modern design tradition, occupies a specific position in the Georgetown design district: the M Street IKEA planning studio sits among the B&B Italia and Poliform showrooms that serve the top end of the Georgetown furniture market, providing the full spectrum of the furniture design market in a single M Street walkable corridor from the accessible to the luxury. Open from 10am most days, noon Sunday. The Georgetown University residential community that the upper M Street IKEA serves includes both the student population that is furnishing first apartments and the faculty and staff who are establishing Georgetown residences. The IKEA planning studio format at 3307 M Street accommodates both customer types with the design planning tools and the product ordering service that the urban IKEA format provides. Hours run from 10am most days and noon on Sunday.