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Ikea's Plans For Tampa Anger Councilwoman

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By ELLEN GEDALIUS | The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 14, 2008

TAMPA - City Councilwoman Linda Saul-Sena says she's so unhappy with the design of the Ikea store planned for Tampa she will make a video of the site and post it on YouTube to embarrass the company.

Saul-Sena made her threat in a Dec. 20 letter to the Pernille Lopez, president of the company's U.S./North American division. Her letter calls the site plan a "cookie-cutter template" with inadequate landscaping and little attention paid to energy efficiency or other green-building principles.

"Please save yourself and the City of Tampa the shame of mediocrity and redesign your Tampa store to be sustainable," the councilwoman wrote in her letter.

Not so fast, says the city. On Wednesday, Mark Huey, the city's administrator of economic and urban development, said Ikea's project has "strong and enthusiastic support" from the city.

"The site plan is totally acceptable to the city," Huey wrote to Lopez.

A YouTube groundswell of protest notwithstanding, the Tampa store is set to open in the summer of 2009.

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