MEC's Burlington Store Press Release
The Reality
After skimming through their press release, please see our response -- we've taken most of the major points listed below and pointed out how many of them are somewhat of a fallcy: Why Mountain Equipment Co Op made a mistake in choosing their Burlington location
The Press Release
Monday, June 25, 2007
New store will bring outdoor goods closer to co-op members MEC announces next new ‘green’ store in Burlington, Ontario
Vancouver—Mountain Equipment Co-op™ (MEC), Canada’s leading outdoor retailer, will open its next new store in Burlington, Ontario, in 2008. Located just south of the Queen Elizabeth Way near the Burlington GO Station at the intersection of Brant Street and Leighland Road, the store will enable the co-operative retailer to better serve its large and growing membership in southwestern Ontario.
“Co-operatives exist to serve their member-owners,” said MEC chair Linda Bartlett. “We’re delighted about the prospect of serving one of our fastest growing membership areas through a new centrally located and readily accessible store.”
CEO Peter Robinson said, “Burlington and the site we’ve selected are ideal for MEC. Not only is the city the hub of our membership base in southern Ontario, it’s also close to numerous outstanding outdoor recreation opportunities. The site itself is accessible by various modes of transportation, highly visible, and it’s located in an area of the city that’s experiencing regrowth.”
MEC has approximately 750,000 members in Ontario. Of these, over 100,000 live within the store trade area—on the west side of Greater Toronto, in or near Burlington, Guelph, Hamilton or London, throughout the Niagara Peninsula and in smaller southwestern Ontario communities.
Besides camping or paddling in southwestern Ontario’s numerous parks or lakes, opportunities for road cycling, mountain biking, hiking, rock climbing and cross-country skiing are all readily available near Burlington.
“We are very excited to welcome Mountain Equipment Co-op to Burlington," said Mayor Cam Jackson. “MEC is an outstanding retailer which perfectly complements our community values of active living and environmental stewardship.”
Sitting on a 1.8-acre site, the store will total 20,000 square feet in size, with 17,000 feet devoted to retail space and the balance for staff and warehouse space.
“Sustainability is a driving force at MEC, and the Burlington store will be developed to our rigorous green building standards,” said Robinson.
MEC plans to construct its greenest building to date and to meet at least the gold standard of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) green-building rating system.
Site planning and design work are underway. The goal is to begin construction in time to complete major foundation and concrete work before freeze-up this fall.
Approximately 80 people will be employed at the Burlington store once it is open. The staff complement will increase during holiday and seasonal peaks
The store will be the outdoor retail co-operative’s third store in Ontario (after Toronto and Ottawa) and its twelfth in Canada. MEC also operates a bilingual transactional website (www.mec.ca), mail order service and corporate and group sales program.
MEC is Canada’s leading retailer of outdoor clothing and equipment, providing quality products and services for self-propelled activities like hiking, climbing and skiing. Established in 1971, MEC has more than 2.6 million members throughout Canada and around the world. Widely recognized for its commitment to community and sustainability, MEC recently joined One Percent For The Planet, an alliance of some 500 companies in 20 countries that annually allocate one per cent of their total revenues towards environmental initiatives.