A year after breaking ground on its 415,000-square-foot store in Centennial, Sweden’s IKEA home furnishing company announced that the store will open earlier than planned.

The store, the second largest IKEA location in the United States, will open at 9 a.m. Wednesday, July 27, said IKEA spokesman Joseph Roth.

When ground was broken, IKEA said the store would open in the fall of 2011.

“It was a light winter, which allowed the construction team to work hard and long,” said Roth. “Everything went really quickly – good weather, a good construction team” and local officials who helped speed the permitting process.

IKEA, which identifies itself as the “world’s leading home furnishing retailer,” was founded in 1943 in the rural Swedish town of Almhult by Ingvar Kamprad.

The company has 321 stores worldwide. With the opening in Centennial, IKEA will have 38 stores in the United States.

Roth said a decision was made to make the Centennial store the second largest in the U.S. both because of its regional draw and because IKEA wants to have a large inventory on hand.

According to Roth, IKEA Centennial will have 10,000 exclusively designed items, three model home interiors, 50 room settings, a supervised children’s area, and a 550-seat cafeteria-style restaurant.

Roth said the restaurant will serve Swedish specialties such as meatballs with lingonberries and salmon plates as well as American dishes.

There will also be a Swedish “food market” where shoppers can buy many of the foods available in the restaurant. These include cheeses, cookies and candies.

The store is located on 13.5 acres along the western side of Interstate 25, north of the Park Meadows area.

Customers will be able to park in 1,500 parking spaces on a two-level parking garage under the store.

The location will be the first IKEA store in the U.S. to have geothermal components as part of its heating and cooling system and will have solar panels – currently being installed – on its roof.

Doug Wolfe, IKEA project construction manager, praised the work of the local construction company that was the primary contractor.

Roth said the site presented challenges because of its relatively small size and because the north end of the acreage was higher than the south end.

Most IKEA stores are built on 20 to 30 acres, while the Centennial store sits on 13.5 acres, he said. That’s why the parking was placed below the store, he noted.

Approximately 500 construction workers have helped build the store, with 100 to 300 workers present on a daily basis.

When the store opens, it will employ 400 people.

The company has already hired many full-time employees. This weekend it will begin hiring part-time workers in home furnishing sales, customer service, cashiers, receiving, warehouse and stock replenishment.

Howard Pankratz: 303-954-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com.