Mountain Equipment Co-op (MEC) opened a new North Vancouver store last week and is poised to build new headquarters next year before furthering its expansion into Ontario.
The 15-location Vancouver-based outdoor adventure chain had operated since 2004 out of a 11,800-square-foot store on Main Street in North Vancouver.
Its new store is 21,000 square feet and is located about a block away from the now-closed old location.
“The North Shore is perhaps the most active community in Canada,” MEC’s CFO Sandy Treagus, told Business in Vancouver June 19. “Since we opened the old store, we realized that we would probably be underserving our members.”
MEC’s new North Vancouver store is still small compared with stores in Toronto, Calgary and on West Broadway in Vancouver. Each of those is between 40,000 and 45,000 square feet, Treagus said.
The company plans to start construction next year on a new headquarters on Great Northern Way on the site of the current Albion Fisheries head office.
The next new store is likely to be in 2014 in Toronto, Treagus said.
