Knowing that even two years after the pandemic many are still quite content to stay home, Ikea is coyly trying to give them reason to venture out with reminders of why they enjoy staying in. Hundreds waltzed through the company’s “Sleepeasy,” a two-floor, 14,000-square-foot immersive experience at 51 Crosby Street in SoHo. Guests — many with smartphones held high — entered through a hidden door in what was meant to be a Swedish bodega stocked with Ikea beverages, snacks and products.
En route to the main area, visitors stopped to leave their marks on a graffiti wall with neon glow-in-the-dark markers. Just as the Prohibition-era, liquor-loaded speakeasies encouraged people to mix and mingle, Ikea’s Sleepeasy is designed for visitors to interact and linger. In addition to an abundance of beds, there were loungers piled high with pillows, throws and blankets.
As the Swedish company’s double-entendre moniker spells out, the Sleepeasy destination is geared to better sleep. Point taken, given that 13.5 percent of adults report feeling tired or exhausted on most days, according to the National Council on Aging.
The Stockholm-based furniture company has plans to really settle in more to Manhattan. Last month Ingka Investments, an arm of the Ingka Group which owns the majority of Ikea stores, revealed plans to open an 80,000-square-foot Ikea store at 570 Fifth Avenue. That will be housed in the one-million-square-foot mixed-use commercial building that Ingka Investments.