Shoppers invade new Saint John Costco

Shoppers arrived early for the opening of the new Costco Wholesale store in Saint John on Thursday, the second New Brunswick location for the retail giant.

The new 13,192-square-metre Costco is now the largest of its warehouse stores in Atlantic Canada.

Mike Briere, the store's manager, said a few thousand people have already signed on as members.

"For all the work we did, that's kind of a payoff for us, to see people be happy to come shop with us in here, so that's great for us," Briere said.

The retail store is hoping to tap into a solid base of Saint John customers who shopped at the Moncton location.

Russell Bainbridge owns a catering company in Saint John and often travelled to Moncton to stock up on fresh supplies.

"We try to get what we need as we need it so we don't have a lot of stuff sitting around," Bainbridge said.

"So we make a lot of trips back and forth to the stores for every catering that comes up. So to have something this close, this big, lets me get what I need when I need it rather than to have a lot of money tied up in stock."

Margaret Bailey, a Rothesay resident, has had a membership with Costco for years and she used to drive to Moncton to do her shopping.

Bailey said now it seems Saint John has the competitive edge with the larger, newer store.

"We've got everything here in Saint John now," Bailey said.

"The fact that business is coming here, developers are bringing business here, this is a major boom here. I think people here are going to consider themselves very fortunate."

Meanwhile, the city put in a number of traffic measures ahead of Costco's opening. The traffic lights at the intersection of Ashburn Lake Road and Rothesay Avenue have been adjusted to keep up with increased traffic at that corner.

Several former National Hockey League stars, including Claude Lemieux, Petr Svoboda, Dale Hawerchuk and Yvan Cournoyer, were on hand for an autograph session at the new store.

When the store began hiring in March, more than 500 people packed inside the Costco in the hope of snapping up one of the estimated 100 jobs available.