MONCTON – At least 150 people entered Costco’s new expanded warehouse and gas bar in the first five minutes after it opened on Friday morning.

The largest Costco in Atlantic Canada, located on 140 Granite Drive at the corner of Elmwood Drive and the TransCanada highway, has new products and services and an enlarged space to accommodate a growing customer base in the Moncton region.

“We’ve got about 250 new items that most of our members probably have not seen before. You’ll see a Hearing Aid Centre that we’ve never had before…Obviously, the gas station. All the rest of our businesses are expanded and bigger and it’s easier to serve people,” said Jeff Hill, the Moncton location’s manager.

“We have Prada purses, Ugg boots and stuff like that that wouldn’t have been found at the other location because they’re just too small,” added Ron Damiani, Costco Canada’s spokesman who flew from Ottawa for the opening.

The store now has a bigger food court seating area, an expanded produce area, a larger optical selection and tire centre, and more cash registers.

Many of the members that lined up early Friday morning came to take advantage of opening day deals. Champion Generators were sold for $200 below the regular price of $1,000, among other deals.

Harold Cameron got there 10 minutes before the ribbon cutting ceremony began at 7.30 am.

“I bought two generators to start with,” he said as he left the store. “It’s great.”

But he hasn’t seen much of the store yet because of the long line-up.

“I’m pretty excited [about the opening]. I want to see the rest of the new store.”

Others, like Laurie Donaher, were there to begin their Christmas shopping. Donaher also arrived before the ceremony.

“We wanted to be one of the first ones in. It’s a new building and new atmosphere, we just wanted to check it all out, be part of the experience,” she said. “We’re just here Christmas shopping. Starting early.”

Hill said the reaction of shoppers is as expected.

“It’s typically a lot of people at these openings. At [the old Costco] building, the 23-year-old one, every morning we had a lineup. So we know that opening this new location we’d have a huge lineup and our members didn’t let us down.”

This is now the largest Costco location in Atlantic Canada, with a 164,000-square-foot warehouse on 17 acres of land. The new location also has 875 parking spaces, 60 per cent more than the old store, and 24 gas pumps.

“The big thing that people are going to notice is we were our own ‘artificial ceiling’ in that other location, right? We were choking the traffic, we often needed police escorts and police supports during long weekends,” said Damiani.

“If it was Easter weekend or any big weekend, the employees, we have to get them shuttled on-site because we just didn’t have the parking spots. I think it’s just going to be a much, much more pleasant shopping experience.”

Damiani expects customers from other Atlantic provinces to come to the Moncton location as well.

“So I think we’re going to see our business grow significantly very, very quickly…It’s going to be great for the local economy as well,” he said.

Costco hired an additional 100 people to its team for the new location and transferred 350 from the old location, raising its total headcount to 450. The workers’ average salary sits at $24.50 per hour.

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.

Below are a few photos from the opening day: