Tuesday, February 22, 2011 Daisy Pavon will traverse 48 flights of steps this weekend to aid the BC Lung Association.
Page A29
ary Annivers 1985-2010
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Ruth Paré owns the Haney Place Market & Antique Mall, which operates in the former Safeway location, on the east end of the Haney Place Mall. The announcement was made on Monday that this is the site of the new Thrifty Foods coming in 2012.
Maria Rantanen/TIMES
Haney Place Mall
Thrifty Foods becomes new anchor
The downtown shopping centre gets new entrances and facade as the mall prepares for a new tenant. by Maria Rantanen
mrantanen@mrtimes.com
The happy face on Thrifty Foods logo reflected how Maple Ridge Mayor Ernie Daykin was feeling Monday. He was “happy” indeed, when the announcement was finally confirmed that Thrifty’s is opening a store at Haney Place Mall in 2012, after improvements are made to the exterior of the mall. “Since Safeway left, there was
a void in that mall,” Daykin said. “It’s good news for downtown – it’s another welcome addition.” The agreement Thrifty’s made with Haney Place owners is that the mall itself will undergo “signficant upgrades” to the exterior, its entrances, and the parking area before the new grocery store opens. The former Esso station and car wash are also part of the property, and these will be integrated into the new shopping centre, said Chris Sherry, one of the owners of Narland Properties – which owns the mall. The new grocery store will be 35,000 square feet and will be located where the Haney Place Market & Antique Mall currently
exists – the former Safeway site. This will be Thrifty Foods’ “Bringing a retailer of this eighth location in the Lower calibre to Maple Ridge is a huge Mainland. win for the dowtown core,” said Ruth Paré, owner of the Sherry. antique mall, said she has been He added that paying rent the mall will take month month “Bringing a retailer for the to advantage of the last of this calibre to town core inceneight years, and tive program. said been she’s Maple Ridge is a The next phase heard rumours huge win for the is to start working about Thrifty’s with an architect coming to the downtown core.” through the design mall for many Chris Sherry process, Sherry of those years. explained. At this point, “The opportunity she’s not sure to locate one of our stores with is she will relocate or just close our flagship fresh departments in down the antique store. the heart of Maple Ridge is cause “It’s hard to find something for celebration,” said Jim Dores, big enough, that’s reasonably president of Thrifty Foods. priced,” Paré said.
The antique store is used by a lot of movie and television companies for props, and they’ve told her they don’t know where they’ll get their props, if she closes. Paré rents 24 booths in the antique mall and has one fulltime and one part-time employee. Target has bought the Zellers chain and Sherry said Narland is in discussions with that company about whether Target will replace Zellers or not – but he said he is optimistic. The District of Maple Ridge has recently bought 12 residential properties just east of the new Thrift location, which they hope will be developed into a high-density retail-housing mix.
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