Ste Anne Co-op grocery construction begins

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This article was published 24/07/2023 (653 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

All the paperwork is done and the machines have moved in at the site of Ste Anne’s new Clearview Co-op grocery store on Traverse Road.

General Manager Henry Nickel was at the construction site July 17, where excavators have been working for about two weeks laying the groundwork for the company’s first new grocery store.

It will be 22,000 square feet and add 40-50 full and part-time jobs in Ste Anne. This store will have a pharmacy, full-service bakery, and floral and meat departments. Ste. Anne now has one grocery store and one pharmacy in town.

Nickel expects the store to open in the fall of 2024.

“There’s a lot of excitement around this,” said Nickel.

“Ste Anne’s a growing community and continuing to grow, so they require services at a little bit of a larger scale than is currently here today. And that’s where we saw the opportunity to help out with that.”

Clearview’s connection to the community goes back to 1931 when it opened its first co-op gas station.

“So this is home for us,” said Nickel.

“The question has been coming from the community for many years already. They wanted to see a grocery, and we’ve looked into it a few times before, and now we felt that the time was right.”

He added that the history have a bit of a sentimental value to the company’s first new grocery store.

“We don’t want to forget where we came from,” said Nickel.

While it is the first one to be built from scratch and is to be the largest, this will be Clearview’s third grocery store after amalgamating with St Malo and La Broquerie Co-ops. Nickel said that move was made after the co-op looked at how it can diversify for the benefit of its members.

“We kind of got our feet wet on how grocery works and what the opportunities are there,” said Nickel.

Construction was able to go forward after the store’s $8-million permit was approved in May.