Price-Costco Store Prepares for Opening

The fresh meat can wait a week.

But workers are stocking the new Price-Costco warehouse store in Simi Valley with everything else this week--from eyeglasses and motor oil to computers and candy bars--in anticipation of the 136,000-square-foot mega-market’s opening on Wednesday.

Simi Valley has agreed to pay for more than $500,000 worth of road improvements and development fees just to entice the popular subscription-only retailer to plant its 267th store on Park Center Drive at the west end of the city.

The City Council agreed, among other concessions, to change the zoning and waive development fees in hopes that the store will return about $280,000 a year in sales taxes to Simi Valley.

Costco workers have spent much of this week filling the shelves and putting last-minute touches on cabinetry and wiring in the vast building, said Dick DeKalb, the warehouse manager.

“We’re really extremely pleased to be in Simi Valley. We’ve been very well received by the community,” said DeKalb, noting that new customers have been walking in daily to pay annual subscription fees of $35 per couple or $30 for a business account.

Costco employs about 130 people at the store, most of them new hires from in and around Simi Valley, DeKalb said. “We worked with the Simi Valley [state] employment office,” he said. “We hired across the board, everything from cashiers to membership service, to meat-cutting positions, stocking positions and some pharmacy clerk positions.”

Upper-echelon workers transferred in from other Costco operations, he said.