This just in:

IKEA announced today that its Portland store will open on July 25. If you are familiar with Portland, the new store is out near the airport, off of Interstate 205.

IKEA Portland will present 50 different room settings, three complete model homes, a supervised children’s play area, and a 250-seat restaurant serving Swedish specialties such as meatballs with lingonberries or salmon plates, as well as American dishes, according to a news release from the company.

The store will also include approximately 1,200 parking spaces, 75 bicycle racks (very Portland), as well as a light-rail station in front of the store, providing convenient access for coworkers as well as for customers.

The store will employ 400 people. It's the second store in the Northwest and the 31st store in the country.

At yesterday's Port of Tacoma commission meeting, port staff announced they'd finally reached an agreement with Arkema to buy the chemical company's property on Taylor Way.

The news was overshadowed by the eminent domain action, so I thought I'd provide a few more details here.

The port has been trying to obtain the 67 acres owned by Arkema for the past few years. Saying that the negotiations were taking too long, the port filed a condemnation action against the company last December.

The property – at 2901 Taylor Way – once housed a caustic soda and liquid chlorine plant. The business opened in 1929 and operated under the name Pennwalt for much of its life.

The property hasn't been used for years.

=> Read more!

As George Harrison sang: “Let me tell you how it will be, there's one for you, nineteen for me.”
And now it’s your turn to be The Taxman.

The Internal Revenue Service is looking for Revenue Officer candidates for positions in Bellevue, Kennewick, Olympia, Seattle, Tacoma, Vancouver and Yakima. Applicants must apply by June 21.

An applicant must be a U.S.citizen and have a bachelor’s degree, with superior academic achievement, or equivalent work experience. Revenue officers are trained in both tax law and collection techniques necessary for the collection of delinquent taxes and delinquent tax returns. Duties include conducting research, interviews, investigations and analysis of financial information for assigned cases, often at the taxpayer’s home or business.

For details, visit www.jobs.irs.gov/home.html. Application information is available at www.usajobs.opm.gov.

Attention music lovers: iTunes Store now sells thousands of songs without copy protection.

That means you can listen to them on any device that plays digital music.

The service – called iTunes Plus – features tracks that are free of digital rights management, or DRM, technology. The copy-protection software limits where songs or movies can be played and distributed.

The unrestricted content means some songs purchased from iTunes will work for the first time directly on portable players other than Apple’s iPod, including Microsoft Corp.’s Zune.

The inaugural batch of iTunes Plus songs includes music from Coldplay, The Rolling Stones, Norah Jones, Frank Sinatra, Pink Floyd and more than a dozen of Paul McCartney’s classic albums.