Co-op Food store on track for spring opening

Project under budget

January 6, 2025, 11:12 am
Nicole Taylor

The Borderland Co-op food store under construction a year ago.

Borderland Co-op’s new Moosomin Food Store is under budget at this point and is on track for an opening in the spring of 2025.

Borderland Co-op has been working on the new 30,000-square-foot grocery store in Moosomin since November of 2023.

The new store will be double the size of the current store.

Once the new store opens the current grocery store will be demolished and the parking lot will be expanded.

Borderland General Manager Jason Schenn says mid-April would be the earliest the new store will open. “We will close down business in the old store one day and open up for business up in the new store the next day,” he said. “We will have a whole transition team moving product into this building. There will be a constant stream for a week or so until we empty the old store and then we will auction off the equipment and start demolition.”

Schenn says the new grocery store will employ more people from the surrounding area.

“We are going to have around 60 employees in the new building. The management are now working for us and on site, so they’re getting up to speed with things. Then, operations will just continue there until they can start getting in here and setting up their spaces.”

Schenn says he is excited to be part of such a large project.

The store is slated to open in the spring, in mid-April at the earliest.

“I am very excited,” he said. “This is by far the biggest project we have taken on since I have been with Borderland. It is one of those generational projects that we hope is going to last a long time. This one is hopefully going to have a lot of positive impact on our branch locations as well. “

He said many local contractors are working on the project.

“Tag’s is working on mechanical, they are coming out of Esterhazy, Tom’s Electric is doing the electrical, Wall-Eye is doing all of our interiors, GeeBee out of Kipling are doing the ground work which is local to us as they’re part of Borderland’s area, CCR is our general contractor. As much as we can keep local, we do.”

The interior work is ongoing, but there is a delay due to the pending arrival of the main distribution power panel, which was originally supposed to arrive in December.

Borderland GM Jason Schenn

“Everything in this project is planned and connected, so when something is delayed, it affects everything else. The rest of the equipment and materials all have arrivals dates, it’s just the main panel we are waiting on.” said Schenn.

“We’ll just have to see if the delay disrupts anything else along the way.

“If the guys run out of things to do between now and when the panel arrives, all the stuff that has to get done gets pushed back.”

Schenn said Thursday that he is proud the project is under budget at this point.

“It looks like we could come in up to $1 million under budget, and that’s something I’m very proud of,” he said.