MONCTON – Costco will open its new expanded warehouse and gas bar at the corner of Elmwood Drive and the TransCanada highway next month, according to the company’s website.

The company wouldn’t yet confirm a date when contacted by Huddle. The leasing agent for Granite Centre, which will house the new Costco, says the building will be ready by mid-late November.

Bill Hennessey, the managing director of Colliers International in Moncton, says construction will “absolutely” be done by then, but he doesn’t know the opening date.

“As you can appreciate, I’m not in the middle of Seattle in [Costco’s] office. We’re working with them on the building and land side of it,” he said.

It will be the largest Costco location in New Brunswick, with a building spanning 154,000 square foot atop nearly 17 acres of land.

The new location will also have 849 parking spaces and a four-island gas bar across, with space for a potential future expansion, the company said in a press release in May.

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Costco is the first anchor tenant at the Granite Centre, a retail complex that will also include Home Hardware, which plans to move from its current location on Elmwood Drive. Colliers International is planning for other national retailers to populate the site – some will be new to Moncton, others will be growing their business in the region.

“We’re working closely with three and there are others that have approached us with strong interest. So we expect, no later than the end of November, we’ll be making announcements about strong national retailers that will be opening at Granite Centre,” Hennessey said.

Granite Centre’s location – still in Moncton but also close to the highway – makes it ideal for retailers, he said. Many of them will offer more premium, experienced-based stores.

“It’s not your typical shelving, take a product, bring it to the cash, and check out [store]. It’s much more engaging. You may end up spending more time than you had anticipated. You may walk in for product knowledge, and not necessarily product purchase. The Apple store is probably a great example,” Hennesey said.

The Granite Centre also wants to take advantage of a part of the city that’s underserviced. The area lacks sit-down restaurants despite being close to the Caledonia Industrial Park, where around 3,500 employees work.

Colliers International continues to look for retailers who may not have a presence yet in Moncton or New Brunswick.

“The goal is to grow the Greater Moncton Area as a retail destination area,” Hennessey said. “In doing so, we’d end up with more hotel rooms booked, we end up with more sit-down restaurant sales, and that’s the overarching theme of what we’re trying to do with the development – it’s to make it more and make it different than what’s already here.”

Lumel Holdings is the local developer working on Granite Centre, along with property sales and leasing firm Colliers International.

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