Store leaves floods behind
FAIRFIELD Central is marking the end to its flood misfortune with the grand opening of stage three today.
Supermarket chain Coles has opened its doors for the first time, after flood damage in February delayed construction.
Lancini Group chief operating officer Salvatore Guardala said the stage three completion, worth $32 million was thanks to the resilience of staff and retailers.
“We’ve had great partnerships with our contractors, our builders, and Townsville rallied really hard to get us to where we are today and I’m really proud to be a part of that,” Mr Guardala said.
“There’s 100 people behind what you see today and they never gave up, and what we’ve delivered is due to those people.
“In February, we were a few weeks from handing over to Coles and it was quite fitted out from our side of the fence and we’ve had to go back in and rebuild that.”
Store manager Kylie Birt said it was only the second of its kind in Queensland as a new concept store focused on convenience.
“It certainly caters to those customers who obviously are time-poor and just want quick and easy meals that they can get in and get out,” she said.
Ms Birt said the new store had created 80 new positions, with 20 of those dedicated to employing junior staff.
“They’re just for new recruits, it could be their first job ever, so that’s something we’re really excited about, that we’ve been able to give 20 kids in the community a job,” she said.
Fairfield Central has been more than a decade in development, with completion of stage three adding 5400sq m to the existing centre, which now has more than 60 retailers and 1000 car parks.
Mr Guardala said there were 10 shops in the final stages of joining stage three, with more expansion works under way.
“Our next major expansion will be on the southern end of the centre closest to Woolworths, we’ve struck a deal with My Car which is a car servicing, maintenance company – we’ve started early works with that and hopefully early next year we’ll be opening that stage,” he said.