Take aim, Burnaby. The city's first Target is opening on Wednesday.
The doors will open at 8 a.m. at the new location at Metropolis at Metrotown, where the Zellers was previously.
Customers planning to shop at the new store should be prepared - there could be a crowd, according to Joanne Elson, public relations manager for Target.
"Wednesday will definitely I think be a very busy day," she said in a phone interview with the NOW. "There's typically a lot of excitement in the markets so sometimes we experience lineups and stuff like that."
The Metropolis at Metrotown location will employ 280 people, according to Elson.
It's a large store, with 85,000 square feet of selling space, she added, and will include a pharmacy and a Starbucks.
The store is one of 31 Target locations opening this week, with two more opening later in November, she said, with 124 Target locations in total across Canada.
"We're just really excited to be here and happy with all the work our team members have been putting into such a massive undertaking,' she added. "We're so happy to have all of our stores open in time for the holidays."
There will be a number of holiday promotions coming up, Elson said.
Target recently launched its toy catalogue online.
The previous Canadian store openings have gone well, Elson said, adding customers have been excited to have access to brands that weren't previously available in Canada.
"We've partnered with well over 100 designers throughout the years," Elson said, adding the company also partners with companies unique to the Canadian market, such as Roots, and is now partnering with Beaver Canoe, a subsidiary of Roots.
The primary challenge with the expansion into Canada has been determining and filling stock, she said.
"In stocks and inventory continues to be our number one challenge, we definitely recognize we aren't quite where we want to be with that," Elson said. "Part of the challenge with something like this is opening 124 stores in one year, we really didn't have any historical data to go on in terms of sales forecasts or anything like that."
Target purchased 189 leases from Zellers in 2011 as part of an expansion venture code-named "Project Bacon" as well as Zellers' pharmacy files, which were sold off, and the Cherokee brand name for its U.S. market as previously reported by the Burnaby NOW.
In the summer of 2012, Target announced it would close 125 Zellers locations for six to nine months for renovations before reopening each as a Target store by early 2014. The company also stated it was spending more than $10 million to remodel the locations.
Of the 31 stores opening Wednesday, six are in B.C. The other five locations are the Abbotsford Power Centre, Cottonwood Mall in Chilliwack, Haney Place Mall in Maple Ridge, Lansdowne Centre in Richmond and Surrey Place.
Target plans to open 150 stores in Canada by 2017, Elson said, and will make announcements soon regarding 2014 and beyond.
