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Beeland Co-op buys Tisdale Mall

Jul 11, 2014 | 6:27 AM

Location, location, location.

That’s what it came down to for Beeland Co-op when it decided to buy the Tisdale Mall.

Todd Svenson, general manager at Beeland Co-op, said it took possession of the Tisdale Mall on June 30.

He said the mall will be knocked down and debris removed from the site shortly as they hope to have the area cleared by September or October.

“It’s a great location … we’ll build a new food store and a new home centre. That’s the plan at this point [and it] will enable us to serve our customers a little bit better.

We’ll have more selection, a bigger store, more parking, and all the good stuff that comes with that.”

As for the old Beeland Co-op building, Svenson said it has become part of the negotiations with Fields when that store vacated the mall.

“[Fields] did take an option to purchase [the old Co-op] building when we vacated. They’re interested in coming back to Tisdale once that becomes available, so they do have an option to purchase.”

He said Fields and Sangster’s were about the only two stores left in the mall and that Sangster’s will move to a store in downtown Tisdale at the beginning of August.

Fields moved its store to the old SAANS store in Melfort, and if it can purchase the old Beeland Co-op property, it will come back to Tisdale.

“I think from the Tisdale point-of-view, the mall has been in disrepair for some time, so I think just the fact that that will be cleaned up is a big plus for Tisdale,” he said.

“I think the other thing that’s a big plus is the fact we’ll be able to expand our operation mostly on the food side. With the Extra Foods closing last year the store we’re currently in we’re stretched to the limit. With the extra room out there we’ll have lots of parking, bigger store, more variety and better selection.”

And Svenson said it will be the same on its home centre side, more variety and better selection; all of this will allow Beeland Co-op to better serve the community.

“The food store we’re currently in was built in 1981, it’s served us well over the years but with the closing of Extra Foods [our store] is now undersized.”

The current Beeland Co-op Home Centre was built in 1979.

“It was in our plans to do some redevelopment. We had bought some other property that we were going to put a new home center on and when the mall became available we shifted gears and liked the option of that property and the home centre and food store side by side.”

He said Tisdale is growing and Beeland wants to become a part of that.

Along with the new location at the Tisdale Mall, it is also opening a gas bar near the site, and hope to have that open and running before Christmas this year.

He said they hope to be in the ground by next summer for the new location on the Tisdale Mall site.

swallace@panow.com

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