A popular outdoor equipment store has announced plans to expand into southeast and west Calgary by 2019.
On Tuesday morning, MEC (formerly Mountain Equipment Co-op) off disclosed the company’s plans to open locations in the Seton Urban District in the fall of 2018 and Medicine Hill the following year.
“Since the Co-op first opened in Calgary in 1977, MEC has been an integral part of the outdoor community and literally hundreds of thousands of members’ adventures – close to home, in the mountain parks and beyond,” said MEC CEO David Labistour. “These two new stores, Calgary South and Calgary West, promise to support many more adventures in the future, and be more accessible to members who live in those areas of the city.”
The Seton Urban District location is slated to be 30,000 square feet with 70 per cent of the building operating as retail space.
MEC’s Medicine Hill store, located within the Trinity Hills Development near Canada Olympic Park, will span 27,000 square feet.
MEC has approximately 350,000 members in the Calgary area and only one store in southern Alberta.
“While this has been an extremely successful location in the Beltline area, we, to a degree, have been under serving the Calgary market as a whole,” said Jerry McGillivray, regional manager for MEC stores in western Canada
MEC expects to hire a total of 160 employees to staff the two stores including senior staff as well as full-time, part-time, and casual workers.
