We are excited to announce we are relocating Safeway’s Lawson Heights location in Saskatoon to a newly-renovated space on the opposite end of the mall, in what was formerly a Target location. The official opening is expected to take place in early 2018.

We are working to determine staffing requirements for the new store. This includes relocating employees from the current location, which will continue serving the area’s shoppers until the move takes place.

This is one more step in our commitment to re-invest in our Safeway community, building and strengthening our business in an ultra-competitive market. We know our staff are working hard to provide the best service to our shoppers and we will continue these investments in our store network, offering a high-value shopping experience with a focus on quality products at affordable prices.

The updated, full-service Safeway store will be larger than the current Lawson Heights location, offering a better assortment of products and greater variety for our Saskatoon customers.

We still face extremely tough and growing competition from our competitors. If we want to return to our role as Western Canada’s leading grocery store — providing thousands of good, stable jobs — we must get our costs back into line. Considering the success we’ve seen with our franchised stores in Moose Jaw and Prince Albert, we plan to franchise this location when we have better insight on the sales in this new store. We believe that building a mix of both corporately owned and franchised stores is critical to the overall success of our business.

We will share more details on timing as they become available, and we are happy to answer any questions our employees may have. Lawson Heights staff can direct their questions to their Store Manager Jim Buzzard, Director of Operations Todd Leibel, or Human Resources Manager Cheryl Tomlinson.

This relocation is an exciting move for us, and one that will help us face and overcome our challenges as we move forward building a better Safeway future, together.