Opening day is getting closer for the new Morden Community Thrift Shop building.
Good progress has been made on the construction of their second building directly east of the existing thrift store on North Railway Ave.
The expansion will offer retails space of about 8,000 square feet for furniture, sporting goods, and hardware, while the existing 5,000 sq. ft. building will focus on things like housewares, clothing, and toys.
President Kent Noel noted the basic structure of the second building is complete and work is well underway on things like the duct and electrical work.
“We just have a little bit of a delay on the heating system and stuff like that, but it’s really coming along,” he said last week.
They are still a few months away from opening, he noted, as it will take some time to finish construction, move items over to the space, and rework the layout of the existing building.
“The new store probably won’t open till about May,” Noel estimated. “The idea is that once it’s ready enough to start putting stuff in there, we’re going to shut the existing building down for a couple of weeks because we’re going to have to reconfigure this store.”
It’ll be an exciting time for everyone, Noel said.
“The big day is coming. It’s been a long time in the making, but the day is approaching,” he said. “Hopefully within the next month or something we’ll be able to shut this one down and work with this one and get the new one going.”
He added a lot of thought and work will have to be put into planning it all and rearranging things.
“Even with this existing store, because of the extra floor space, we’re going to do more housewares and clothing and stuff like that, but it’s just to reconfigure everything … the moving of the stuff is the easy part.
“The fire department is going to assist us with our move, especially as we move the big stuff across the street,” he added. “They’re always more than willing to help us out.
“It makes it a lot easier for the volunteers because our average age here, if you put everybody together, I think it’s about 73 years old,” he noted.
Once they are fully up and running, Noel noted it will not only mean being able to take in and sell more stuff.
“The amount we are giving back to the community will be considerably more than what it has been in the past,” he said. “Right now, let’s say we do about $500,000 a year … I can see after everything is up and running, perhaps it will be between $800,000 or a million a year going back to the community.”
Looking ahead to the next few months, Noel noted that while they are shut down, they will ask people to hold off on a lot of the usual donations, as there will be no place to put them.
“There will be no sorting or pricing going on at that time … anything that is dropped off will basically have to be left outside.”
