Food Basics to be built in Petawawa

Town of Petawawa council has accepted a revised plan by Metro to add a Food Basics store to the excavated property off Petawawa Boulevard.

The revised plan would allow for autumn construction, with a spring 2023 opening, confirmed Christine Mitchell, Petawawa’s Economic Development Officer.

“It’s been a long time coming,” said Deputy Mayor Gary Serviss. “I’ve got to say I’m cautiously optimistic that this is going to get done. But it is nice to see the updated site plan.”

An agreement to open a grocery store and several additional smaller retail stores was entered on Nov. 3, 2014. Since then, very little movement has occurred.

Metro recently reached out to town staff, indicating that they were now ready to proceed with developing the site with slight modifications, notably around the size of the upcoming Food Basics store. Though the plan was discussed at the June 13 meeting, officially ratifying the revised site plan occurred on June 20.

“This is something that the community has needed,” said Mayor Bob Sweet.

Once that occurs, Metro will be able to move forward with construction of the 2,713 m2 grocery store and surrounding retail spaces. Attached to the store will be an 864 m2 retail building.

A second retail “plaza design” build consisted of 3,103 m2 of retail space and building three and four were proposed to be 465 m2 each in size.