Lee Valley and MEC opening soon in Kelowna

KELOWNA – Future Shop, Zellers and Target may have all disappeared from the retail landscape in recent years, but Kelowna and area shoppers will soon have a couple of popular Canadian-owned stores opening in their places.

Mountain Equipment Co-op and Lee Valley Tools are nearing the final stages of preparation at Orchard Plaza Shopping Centre and both will be open by the end of the month.

Mountain Equipment Co-op is one of Canada’s largest outdoor suppliers, with their Kelowna location expecting 20,000 square feet of camping, snow sports, cycling, hiking, yoga and climbing equipment.

The former Future Shop location next to Save-On Foods will be the 19^th MEC store in Canada when it holds a grand opening April 23.

At the other end of Orchard Plaza, Lee Valley Tools, a family-owned woodworking, hardware, gardening and home products franchise, will open their 17^th Canadian location in the former Zellers-Target space on April 22.

Vice president of marketing J.J. Hochrein says the 15,000-square-foot Kelowna store will be similar to the Kingston, Ont., store launched last fall, with an open concept and a central display.

“This is obviously a good market for us,” Hochrein says. “It’s been a six-month program but we identified Kelowna prior to that. We have a pretty good following (here in the Interior) but they’ve had to go to Calgary or Vancouver or mail order.”

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