Mark your calendars, Sarasota. IKEA will officially open its doors Wednesday, Nov. 18, at 10 a.m., at 147 N. Cattlemen Road in University Town Center's West District.

The store will be open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. on opening day. Beginning Thursday, Nov. 19, regular hours will be 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily, according to IKEA's official Sarasota store page.

The opening comes a little later than originally anticipated. When the Swedish home-furnishings giant announced its Sarasota plans in April, it was aiming for a late-summer debut.

Now, after months of anticipation, Sarasota shoppers are about to gain an entire retail genre: the kind where you come in for a lamp and leave with a bookshelf, six drinking glasses and Swedish meatballs.

At 48,000 square feet, the new IKEA will be a smaller, more streamlined version of the cavernous blue-box stores that many shoppers know from road trips and moving-day pilgrimages. The company originally announced plans for more than 5,000 products on display, with more than 3,000 available for immediate takeaway.

The store will include furnished room settings, a central planning area for one-on-one design consultations and Swedish Bite, a food counter serving IKEA favorites such as meatballs, plant balls, hot dogs and cinnamon buns.

Larger furniture, including sofas and beds, will be available to order for pickup or home delivery rather than hauled straight out of a self-service warehouse.

The arrival brings IKEA's familiar blend of affordable design and flat-pack ambition closer to home. For local shoppers, that means fewer reasons to drive to Tampa and more opportunities to impulse-buy a side table, a stack of tea towels and a bag of frozen meatballs in one trip.

And for anyone who's ever spent an entire afternoon assembling a BILLY bookcase, the good news is that replacement parts will soon be a lot closer, too.

Ikea will be located at 147 N. Cattleman Road, Sarasota, and will be open 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily. Click here to learn more.