U-S retailer Target Corporation has announced the first 105 Zellers locations across Canada that it will be converted into Target stores.
Target picked locations in all 10 provinces.
However, no Zellers stores in our immediate area are being converted — including the Collingwood, Owen Sound, Hanover, Goderich, or Listowel locations.
The closest will be Orillia and Newmarket.
Target hopes to finalize the acquisition of the sites quickly and pay the first half of the 1.82 billion dollars it agreed to for the locations.
Under the deal signed earlier this year to take over up to 220 Zellers locations from the Hudson’s Bay Company, Target will select additional locations before it makes a second payment in the fall.
The company said a majority of Zellers locations across all 10 provinces will become Target stores beginning in 2013 after undergoing “extensive renovation.”
No word on when any of the local Zellers stores may be converted to new Target stores.
Target Canada President Tony Fisher says more possible Target store locations will be announced this September.
Construction will start on the new stores in existing Zellers locations about six to nine months before they open.
