By Jennifer Barrios

Phyllis Christopher Patrick Galvin, GALVIN'S

In spite of IKEA, the year 2000 was a banner year for local furniture sellers, their fortunes no doubt buoyed by the extravagant spending of the dot-com industry, the denizens of which simply could not do without having a $2,500 stained mahogany conference table at which to discuss their lack of a business plan. While 2001 doesn't look to be holding that same promise, there will always be people with money. IKEA's multimillion-dollar marketing campaigns may attract Lexus and Mercedes cars along with the Hondas and Nissans, but they don't stay long. "[IKEA] makes such a buzz about itself, and then when customers get there they say, 'This is it? I drove all this way for this?' That's where we see our opportunity with the homeowners who made the haul up here," Galvin says. If IKEA spends millions of dollars on marketing the idea that people should spend their money on furniture, he figures, then all furniture stores in the area benefit. "You have this retailer sending out the message that people should buy furnishings," he says. "They're raising the awareness level that home furnishings is what you should spend your money on." People from miles around in every direction travel to IKEA -- and, Galvin says, it's inevitable that some will stray from the well-beaten path.

"We have quite a few long-distance travelers," IKEA's O'Rourke agrees. "It's a pretty wide circuit from well above Sacramento to down past Monterey and Carmel." And if IKEA ends up helping other businesses, O'Rourke says, he's pleased. "One of the reasons that IKEA wants to establish itself in different areas is that we know there's a tremendous spillover effect in terms of what we can do for local economies. When you're pulling as much traffic to a location as we are here, then a wide range of services get the benefit of that -- everything from gas stations to restaurants to retailers."

How does it feel, fifteen months later, to be a small furniture store owner in a post-IKEA era? Ask any BFA members, and they'll say it feels pretty good. Here's Gene Agress, president of custom furniture store Berkeley Mills and onetime member of the BFA: "I don't think IKEA's affected us at all," he says. "It's just another cheap furniture bang-out, waste-resources type of company. It's just about moving merchandise, and it's not a respectable way of running a business."

"As far as we're concerned," he says, "they don't really exist."

That sentiment is echoed by Agress' business partner, Cynthia Miyashita, who believes that IKEA's business model can't last in the long run. "Someone gets a brilliant idea -- let's let the customer do everything themselves," she says. "Then you get a store like IKEA. There's not a human being around there who can help you. You are guided by signs and instructions on merchandise instead. The prices are so incredibly cheap, and at first glance they look attractive because they're presented well. But beneath the veneer is particle board."

If local furniture sellers are dismissive of the IKEA threat, other small East Bay retailers are not so sanguine as they watch the transformation of Emeryville into a successful retail behemoth. Last year, merchants from Berkeley's various shopping districts -- Solano Avenue, Telegraph, downtown -- assembled themselves into the Main Street Alliance specifically to confront the question of competition from big-box retail and the Internet. Lisa Bullwinkel is the executive director of the Solano Avenue Association and a charter member of the Main Street Alliance. "A lot of [potential] tax dollars from the city of Berkeley get drained by Emeryville and Richmond big-box stores," Bullwinkel says, adding that consumers should understand that shopping locally is more than just keeping small business owners alive. "One percent of sales tax goes into the city coffers to fix the potholes in front of your house. If you aren't shopping Berkeley, then you can't complain about your potholes."

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