CAMBRIDGE

Hespeler's
tiny, 45-year-old liquor store is scheduled to be replaced with one of
the largest in Waterloo Region by this time next year.

The LCBO
plans to open a 12,000-square-foot outlet at 101 Holiday Inn Dr., as
part of a new retail plaza that will also include a new Shoppers Drug
Mart.

City council waived its environmental rules Dec. 8 to allow the development to proceed without more studies.

The existing Hespeler LCBO on nearby Shepherd Avenue is 3,200 square feet with limited parking.

The
new Hespeler store would be larger than the two-year-old,
9,500-square-foot LCBO at the South Cambridge Centre on Dundas Street.

LCBO spokesperson Linda Hapak said the company has no plans to replace the 6,000-square-foot store on King Street in Preston.

The
largest LCBO in the Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo area is 115 King St.
S. in Waterloo, with 16,000 square feet of retail space.

There
have also been rumours in recent years that The Beer Store planned to
build a big, new Hespeler store on the former Challenger Motor Freight
site at Queen Street and Groh Avenue.

That's near the existing, concrete-block beer store on Queen Street.

The Challenger site is vacant, after plans by Loblaw Co. to build a Great Canadian Superstore foundered.

City planning commissioner Janet Babcock says the property is up for sale after demolition and environmental clean up.

There
are no plans to renovate or replace the 4,000-square-foot Hespeler beer
store, said Sara Taylor, spokesperson for The Beer Store.


This article is from the Kitchener Waterloo Record.

 While it is nice to see a new state of the art liquor store being placed here in hespeler,  a new beer store is required as well.