Costco's Patrick Noone aims to open a store in Ringwood next year. Picture: Wayne Hawkins
COSTCO has officially announced Ringwood is the site for the international retailer’s second Victorian store.
The location will be old Ringwood Market site at the corner of Bond and Market streets and it is expected work will begin in the coming months.
The store is expected to open in mid-2013.
The new supermarket is expected to bring 150 jobs in construction, then more than 400 new jobs on completion.
Costco — a members-only chain that specialises in discount bulk sales — already has a supermarket at Docklands and it has been suspected for some time Ringwood would be the next suburb they chose to open in.
The 2012 Melway labelled the site as a ‘‘proposed Costco’’ earlier this year, fuelling speculation the deal had been done.
This morning Costco managing director Patrick Noone was joined by Premier Ted Baillieu, Maroondah mayor Rob Steane and Maroondah chief executive Frank Dixon to make the announcement.
The site is owned by Queensland Investment Corporation and is part of the Ringwood central activities area, which was identified as an area of growth by the state government.
At today’s announcement Mr Noone said Costco was looking forward to servicing the needs of businesses and households in the area.
‘‘It is a very exciting time for us,’’ he said.
Mr Baillieu said the second site showed an ‘‘expression of confidence’’ from Costco in the Victorian economy and confidence in the Maroondah area.
Cr Steane said the Ringwood store would be bigger than the Docklands store at 14,500 square metres and 982 parking spaces would be created.
‘‘For some time now there have been rumours about the future of the new site. The community has been extremely patient and I hope that you can now join us in celebrating this wonderful milestone for Ringwood, for Maroondah and for the eastern region of Melbourne.’’
Costco is the seventh-largest retailer in the world with 66.5 million membership cardholders worldwide.