South London's new Costco is now open

Get your membership cards ready CTV London’s Bryan Bicknell was at the official grand opening of the new south London Costco Warehouse location.

Big box shopping in London just got a whole lot bigger.

Costco has opened its new London South location on Dingman Drive, replacing its 30 year old consumer warehouse just a stone’s throw away on Wellington Road south.

“Beautiful,” said shopper Lyia Shamoon. “It’s similar to our north side but it’s much bigger and it’s of course newer.”

At more than 150,000 square feet, the store is 20 per cent larger than the older store.

Costco Senior VP Operations for Eastern Canada, Marc-Andre Bally said it responds to growing demand in the region.

“But realistically we needed more square footage,” he explained. “We have a very loyal member base here, as you can see at 6:30 in the morning and it’s already quite busy.”

According to a news release from Costco the new store boasts “a larger variety of specialty departments, such as an on-site bakery, fresh meat, expanded produce area, rotisserie chicken section, optical centre – including an on-site independent optometrist, a newly-introduced hearing aid centre, five tire centre bays, large food court, gas station with 24 pumps on four islands, propane station and an expanded pharmacy. With 12 checkout registers, a new self-checkout section with nine stations and 1,050 shopping carts, the warehouse features 800 parking spots – 150 spots more than the former London location.”

Shopper Vilma Colling said the newly added gas station is a major plus.

“The gas station was open first. That was really a plus because that one up north is a bit far from where I am, so this is really good,” said Vilma.

And in a time of staggering inflation, some shoppers believe going big means getting the best bang for your buck. Shopper Sherry Pfeffer had her cart overflowing with items only minutes after the doors opened.

“You have to have the space to store the stuff first,” she explained. “And as long as you can break down the prices per unit and understand what the prices are here versus at the grocery store, I think you can save a lot of money.”

Costco said the store stocks 3,800 different items.

Forty new jobs have been created to staff the new warehouse.