Costco Continues Canadian Expansion with New Warehouse in Northwest Toronto, More Locations Planned [Interview]

Costco Wholesale is opening a new location in Northwest Toronto in the Rexdale neighbourhood of Etobicoke.

The new location, located at 2260 Islington Avenue off of Highway 401, is 164,162 square feet and the retailer’s 21st location in the Greater Toronto Area.

It includes 1,200 parking spots in a multi-level underground parking garage with elevator access – a first for Costco in Eastern Canada.

“With the opening of this new warehouse, we can serve all of our members in the Northwest Toronto and surrounding area and bring new consumers and businesses to uncover the benefits of a Costco membership,” said Gino Dorico, Senior Vice-President and Country Manager, Costco Wholesale Canada. “We are very proud to share this new location with our valued members and member businesses in the local community and throughout the area.”

Marc-André Bally, Senior Vice-President & General Manager, Costco Wholesale Eastern Canada, said Costco has been looking for a long time to introduce another store in the GTA.

“We have several locations in Toronto and they’re quite busy. We felt that we needed another unit to make sure that we service our members properly,” he said.

“It’s very well located. It’s right off the 401, which is the busiest highway in Canada. It’s visible from the highway. The density of the population around the location is something that we always pay very close attention to and in this case it just met our criteria on a lot of fronts. The average income is where we need it to be to be a successful building. The surrounding buildings are very busy and we felt that we needed to offer them some relief.”

Bally said Costco isn’t finished expanding in the GTA as there is more room for growth.

“Absolutely. Toronto is growing so fast that we are looking at multiple sites for future expansion. These projects don’t happen overnight. These are projects that take multiple years for them to come to fruition. So we always have to think for the future and we are actively looking at multiple other sites to grow our business,” he said.

Costco said the new warehouse has created 135 new full-time jobs and 100 new seasonal jobs.

“It’s a large location,” said Bally. “The locations in the surrounding areas are not necessarily this size. It’s fun for our member base to have the opportunity to shop in a brand new location that’s got all the bells and whistles. There’s a lot of wow items for the opening from gold bars to a $5000 tool chest to multiple other wow items that we’re going to offer our members.”

The retailer said the new location features wide aisles and an extensive selection of food offerings. It also includes a large variety of specialty departments, such as an on-site bakery, fresh meat, expansive produce area, rotisserie chicken section, optical centre – including an on-site independent optometrist – a hearing aid centre, five tire centre bays, large food court, gas station with 24 pumps and a pharmacy.

With 12 checkout registers and a new self-checkout section with nine stations, the warehouse features 1,200 shopping carts.

“Underground parking is something we normally see in our Asian units, Asian countries where we operate that we have multi-level parking. Sometimes parking on the roof. Sometimes parking below ground. It is a first. We’re going to have two-level parking . . . We’re going to operate four elevators. This is certainly something that makes it unique.”

Costco Wholesale currently operates 861 warehouses worldwide and 107 warehouses across Canada.  The first Costco Wholesale location opened in Burnaby, BC in October 1985, while the first Ontario location opened in Ottawa in 1991.

Costco Wholesale employs over 46,000 people in Canada with more than 17,000 in Ontario. Its Canadian head office is located at 415 West Hunt Club Road in Ottawa.