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Confirmed: Walmart to move into former Sears store at Hillside

Walmart has announced that it’s opening a Supercentre store at Hillside shopping centre in early 2022. The revelation ends months of speculation that the retail giant would fill the space vacated by Sears in late 2017.
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Construction activity has been underway for months on the exterior and interior of the former Sears site at Hillside Shopping Centre. DARREN STONE, TIMES COLONIST

Walmart has announced that it’s opening a Supercentre store at Hillside shopping centre in early 2022.

The revelation ends months of speculation that the retail giant would fill the space vacated by Sears in late 2017.

Construction has been underway in recent months on the exterior and interior of the building and in the parking lot facing North Dairy Road.

Walmart will sell ­groceries, including produce, meat, dairy products, baked goods and frozen food, in addition to general merchandise in the more-than-139,000-square-foot space, ­Felicia Fefer, manager of ­corporate affairs for Walmart Canada, said in a ­statement Wednesday.

Preparations for the new store will create approximately 200 trade and construction jobs, while there will be about 250 in-store jobs, Fefer said.

A building permit for $3 million worth of work has been taken out at Victoria city hall by design company Dialog’s Calgary office.

The new store, expected to be close in size to the Canadian Tire at Hillside, will be the third Supercentre in the capital region for Walmart, which already has outlets at Uptown Mall and in Langford.

The chain’s Supercentres offer grocery items as well as goods such as electronics, clothes and home furnishings and are typically larger than a standard Walmart store.

The U.S.-based company is an international retailing ­powerhouse. It operates about 11,500 stores, under 56 ­banners, in 27 countries, as well as ­running e-commerce websites in 10 countries. It has more than 2.2 million employees ­globally.

cjwilson@timescolonist.com