WESTLOCK — The Town of Westlock continues to see economic growth with a brand new, state-of-the-art cardlock facility in the town’s east end.
Pembina West Co-op broke ground on its new $4.1 million dollar facility with a ground-breaking ceremony July 22, and were joined by board members, Town of Westlock Mayor Jon Kramer, CAO Simone Wiley and director of planning and development, Danielle Pougher.
The new Westlock cardlock is a project three years in the making, from concept to construction and is the fourth cardlock facility for Pembina West Co-op, who also has cardlocks in Barrhead, Mayerthorpe and Whitecourt.
“It’s a stopping point here between the city or southern Alberta and the north,” said Pembina West Co-op’s director of operations energy and HABS, Garry Poelzer. “We expect good volume through here.”
The Westlock cardlock facility is being built on 3.7 acres of land, which will allow for easy vehicle access and navigation, as well as allowing space for possible future development, noted Poelzer. It will have 11 lanes, nine pumps, and will be Pembina West Co-op’s first pay-at-the-pump site that accepts Visa and Mastercard.
“It’s one of the first few cardlocks in our system that is doing this,” said Poelzer, noting the introductory feature started this year. The new cardlock in Westlock will also feature a couple of other firsts for Pembina West Co-op including being the first location to dispense premium gasoline and have a fully enclosed all weather diesel exhaust fluid (DEF) dispensing station.
“We’re still going to be dispensing the standard, marked gas and diesel, clear gas and diesel but premium is one at our other three cardlocks we don’t dispense, so this will be nice that we can dispense premium gas for boaters and people that like their premium gas,” said Poelzer, noting the state-of-the-art DEF dispensing station will “allows us to pump through all weather.”
Poelzer spoke about the “great location” for the new cardlock, with cross-traffic coming from places like Edmonton and Acheson, as well as traffic heading north and west.
“The traffic here is incredible. It should serve us well,” said Poelzer.
Construction on the cardlock facility is expected to continue throughout the summer and into the fall, with equipment mobilizing immediately after the groundbreaking, which includes fencing around the project and site management getting to work.
“Our turn-key date is, we’re looking about the first week of November (to open),” he added.
Town officials are just as excited to see the multi-million dollar project begin construction.
“Anytime you can welcome a new business to town is a good day,” said Kramer. “We’re investment ready. We’re excited to hear some of the comments of just how positive it was to work with our administration, how seamless the process was. Anything you can do to make investment easier for the community, that’s the goal, so we’re really proud of our administrative staff for setting the stage.”
