WORK has begun on the new $24 million Woolworths inner city supermarket, that will see the creation of 1000 jobs across all its Tasmanian projects in the short term and 160 ongoing in Launceston.
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The 4000-square metre, state-of-the-art store will have parking, including some underground, for 160 vehicles and is expected to be completed by the end of 2015.
Plans for the store, which will border Wellington, York and Bathurst streets, were first revealed in August 2013 and the Launceston City Council signed off on the project in April.
Woolworths regional development manager James Weight said yesterday it had taken as long as eight years to bring together 17 titles to get to the point of turning the first sod at the site.
The company's state manager Daniel Ellul said they had been very keen to get an inner city site in Launceston.
He said the majority of jobs would come in the construction phase and the 160 ongoing retail jobs would build on the 5000 employees it already had in Tasmania.
"This builds on our current program that we have in place - Woolies has a $70 million investment currently in place in Tasmania, we've completed a number of refurbishments in the last 12 to 18 months and we've got a couple on the go at the moment," Mr Ellul said.
Woolworths owns almost the whole block and the supermarket project will see a sizeable portion of that redeveloped.
Treasurer Peter Gutwein said the beginning of the Launceston project reflected improved investor confidence.
"The best litmus test for what's occurring in your economy is what's occurring in your retail sector, and what these types of developments indicate is that people have got confidence and they're starting to invest again," he said.
The project has also been an added boost for Vos Construction and general manager Phillip Matthew said they would employ more than 100 tradespeople over the next 12 months.
