An IKEA small-format store may be in the cards for Westlake’s Crocker Park. A major new tenant for the western-suburban lifestyle center will officially be announced Tuesday (Ingka Group). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.
Westlake center has ideal spot for retailer
For days, Crocker Park’s owner Stark Enterprises has teased the opening of a new tenant at the suburban Westlake lifestyle center. And from all indications, that tenant is a retailer that Cleveland doesn’t yet have. On Tuesday, we’ll all find out for certain.
Furniture and home goods retailer IKEA announced in March it will add 20 small-format stores at compact retail locations ranging in size from 35,000 to 75,000 square feet. They differ from the retailer’s traditional, massive warehouses by bringing the brand closer to dense city and suburban centers.
NEOtrans reached out to multiple real estate insiders and, while none could say for certain that Stark Enterprises’ announcement would be a new IKEA, indications are that that’s what will be coming to Crocker Park, just off Interstate 90 at Crocker Road.
“The cryptic posts make me think it could be,” said an experienced retail broker who spoke to NEOtrans on the condition of anonymity. The lack of insider information on this deal suggests a non-local tenant is involved. Netherlands-based Ingka Group is the largest IKEA franchisee.
Stark Enterprises CEO Ezra Stark teased Crocker Park’s new tenant today with this graphic and message using IKEA’s color scheme and the reference to “some assembly required” speaks to IKEA’s use of kits for customers’ home assembly (LinkedIn).
The cryptic posts he’s referring to are those of Stark CEO Ezra Stark who has been teasing something big for a week. Last week on LinkedIn he shared pictures of the Stark team celebrating “some major deals” at the Marble Room next to their offices in Downtown Cleveland.
Yesterday, he said Crocker Park would have a big announcement in two days, with a graphic putting the vacated, 50,000-square-foot Dick’s Sporting Goods store at 300 Crocker Park Blvd. in a box waiting to be opened.
That store’s size fits IKEA’s small-format concept perfectly. But it could be remodeled to offer even more floor space, since the second floor of Dick’s is only 15,000 square feet owing to its large, open center area.
Today, Stark wrote “One day ’til some assembly may be required” using a blue and yellow color scheme — the same branding color palette as IKEA. And, of course, many IKEA products come boxed in flat-pack kits designed for home assembly. Coincidence? We think not.
The stars have finally aligned for Greater Cleveland to finally get an IKEA store — but as a small-format version of its huge, warehouse-style locations. The 50,000-square-foot, newly vacated Dicks Sporting Goods store at Crocker Park in west-suburban Westlake is the likely landing spot (Google).
NEOtrans reached out to Stacie Schmidt, vice president of marketing and communications at Stark Enterprises, for comment and more information but she has yet to respond.
“I doubt that backfilling an apparel store with another apparel outfit would warrant this type of buzz from the region’s top lifestyle retail developer,” said another real estate insider who spoke anonymously.
Greater Cleveland is overdue for a bricks-and-mortar IKEA location. It’s the most populous metropolitan area in the USA without a physical IKEA store. The Cleveland suburb of Brooklyn has an IKEA pick-up location at RXO mailing service, 4600 Tiedeman Rd. But that’s it.
The nearest IKEA stores are all at least two hours away by car on Interstate highways from Greater Cleveland — in suburban Columbus, Detroit and Pittsburgh.
The first site-specific tease of Crocker Park’s new tenant was this one, showing the location of the tenant as the vacated Dick’s Sporting Goods at the west end of Crocker Park Boulevard in Westlake (LinkedIn).
Just last month, IKEA announced it was entering the Greater Buffalo market, which is smaller than Greater Cleveland. By early 2027, it is repurposing a former Sears department store measuring 65,000 square feet at the Walden Galleria Mall.
A full-size, 350,000-square-foot IKEA store was proposed at Interstate 480 and Transportation Blvd. in Garfield Heights. But the company canceled those plans in September 2018 citing wetlands and environmental issues on the land, plus a corporate shift toward smaller and online retail formats.
Dick’s Sporting Goods at Crocker Park closed in April 2025 at the end of its 20-year lease after it had opened a new store 4 miles away in Avon. Dick’s was one of the original retail tenants at Crocker Park when it opened at the end of 2004.
It’s been a year of change at Crocker Park. Bar Louie and Hot Chicken Takeover also closed, while Apple and Arhaus moved into larger spaces. Abercrombie & Fitch and Hollister are moving later this year into the Arhaus location, dividing it into two storefronts — 175 and 195 Crocker Park Boulevard.
Next to the former Dick’s Sporting Goods store at Crocker Park is this parking garage which allows large boxed purchases to be wheeled out to your car on the same floor level as the store’s entrance or, at worse, via an elevator in the glassy structure in the foreground (Google).
Another major deal that Stark Enterprises’ staff was likely celebrating is the pending sale to the State of Ohio of a 2.3-acre parking lot in Downtown Cleveland, which was appraised last year by Cuyahoga County at nearly $9 million for tax purposes, public records show.
“The Ohio Department of Administrative Services (DAS) is assisting BWC (Bureau of Workers Compensation), which is pursuing the purchase of a parking lot for its Cleveland office located in the Frank J. Lausche State Office Building,” confirmed J.C. Benton, public relations manager at DAS.
NEOtrans broke the story of the sale, a transaction that reportedly disappointed Mayor Justin Bibb’s administration because the parking lot will not be developed. And it will take the land off the tax rolls, resulting in an annual loss of about $360,000 to the county, library systems and the Cleveland Metroparks.
END
