Residents of Red Hook are bracing themselves for the first wave of shoppers eager for an early glimpse of the first Ikea store in New York City, slated to open next week at a former shipyard in the once sleepy corner of Brooklyn.

The official opening of Ikea ends what has been a drawn-out process that has pitted resident groups and preservationists against Ikea, the city, and themselves. Traffic, air pollution, and the destruction of historic waterfront structures were the main concern of those opposed to the store, which is expected to bring 560 jobs and thousands of additional daily visitors to the area.

The Swedish furniture giant, founded by one of the world’s richest men, Ingvar Kamprad, bought the 22-acre site from the U.S. Dredging Corp. in May 2005.

In 2006, the Municipal Art Society sued the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which controls the waterfront, for allowing Ikea to build a parking lot over a Civil War-era dry dock. A judge dismissed the case for lack of merit. “I don’t want to rain on Ikea’s parade, as someone who does have some of their furniture, but they did not behave very well throughout the process,” the president of the Municipal Arts Society, Kent Barwick said in an interview yesterday.

The president of Brooklyn, Marty Markowitz, said yesterday the opening of Ikea has created much-needed jobs for Red Hook, which is among the New York neighborhoods with the lowest per capita incomes.

“Red Hook hasn’t become everything people thought,” Mr. Markowitz said yesterday in an interview. “But I don’t know what the expectations were. I never expected that in four or five years it would become the next SoHo or Williamsburg. It’s just a different area.”

The district manager of Community Board 6, Craig Hammerman, said Ikea has followed through on all pledges to make street traffic improvements, add 600 new jobs with training courses, and offer a hiring preference to Red Hook residents.

“They were amazingly receptive to any reasonable suggestions and really went out of their way to show their desire to be a good neighbor,” Mr. Hammerman said.

A number of other residents are noticing a surge of activity in one of the more sleepy and isolated areas of Brooklyn.

“I’m a little nervous about the traffic,” an architect who has worked in Red Hook since 2002, John Nafziger, said as he waited for a bus on Atlantic Avenue. Mr. Nafziger said the opening of the cruise boat terminal in Red Hook, combined with traffic generated by the construction of the Ikea store, has made negotiating the streets perilous at times.

“It’s going to change the face of Van Brunt Street. You literally can’t cross the street during peak hours. It’s a nightmare,” he said.

Yesterday, store managers unveiled to the press the 340,000-square-foot complex that is scheduled for a grand opening on Wednesday. A six-acre waterfront esplanade offers vistas of the Manhattan skyline and the Statue of Liberty, and the store offers a bevy of customer-friendly perks.

The layout of the Ikea Brooklyn, as explained by store manager Michael Baker during a tour, is in keeping with Ikea’s customer “flow” theme employed in the other 240 Ikeas throughout the world. Split on two main shopping levels, 48 model rooms and three model homes are on display for customers to browse through at their leisure.

Free water taxis are now running throughout the day to Red Hook from Pier 11 in Manhattan, and store managers are making preparations for a large opening day turnout — possibly tens of thousands of customers. Ikea will be offering thousands of dollars in gift cards and merchandise, including a sofa for each of the first 35 people in line. They said they are not ruling out people camping out in anticipation.

“It has happened before,” a spokeswoman for Ikea Brooklyn, Lorna Montalvo, said to reporters on hand for the unveiling yesterday.