A 24,000-square foot City Market superstore under construction on West Bay Street is on schedule, contractors reported yesterday, and, according to food chain officials, could open by late 2006, slightly ahead of its original announced opening date of early 2007.
Ground was broken July 1, 2005 on the mega-market located on the south side of Cable Beach, west of Sandals resort. When complete, in addition to standard grocery items, the store will have imported specialty items, housewares, a large deli and become Bahamas Supermarkets Ltd second largest store, outsized only by the company’s flagship store in the Harbour Bay Centre, East Bay Street in
Nassau.
Construction of the new Cable Beach City Market, one of 12 stores operated by Bahamas Supermarkets, including three Winn-Dixie stores in Grand Bahama, is part of the parent company’s plan to upgrade all of its facilities to retain its position as the top grocer in the country. Bahamas Supermarkets recently completed renovations of its Lyford Cay store and is remodelling its downtown Freeport Winn-Dixie.
Yesterday’s inspection was good, news, moving tip the moving in date for the structure that already dwarfs the decades-old store adjacent to it that it is replacing. Madeira Plaza Ltd., which owns both buildings, plans to convert the existing City Market into retail space. Larry Treco of CGT Contractors and Developers Ltd. said it is aiming for a late August handover of the building. Outfitting with refrigeration, shelving, lighting, signage and inventory will take about three months, according to Bryan Knowles, CFAO of Bahamas Supermarkets. Additional staff will be hired.
“We outgrew our Cable Beach store long ago and have wanted to build its replacement for what seems like 20 years,” said Knowles. Prospective plans halted earlier by neighbourhood, traffic and zoning concerns evaporated as Cable Beach became increasingly commercial: The area is now targeted for a massive $1.6 billion injection by Baha Mar Development to transform the tired Cable Beach strip into what is being billed as the most dazzling resort complex in the hemisphere. Over the last decade, new condos, townhouses, rental apartments and businesses have also added to the need for a larger store to serve the vicinity.
Cable Beach will be the first of the chain’s stores to open with sophisticated point-of-sale inventory software, one of several innovative systems the company plans to incoporate this year.
Bahamas upermarkets is a publicly-held company with some 1,500 shareholders and its Bahamas Supermarkets Foundation has awarded upwards of $7.5 million in scholarships to Bahamians.
Source: The Bahama Journal
