Retailer secures old industrial site in Hunter Valley.

 

Bulk membership-based retail Costco is to develop a $60 million warehouse and fuel station project in Lake Macquarie City in the Hunter Valley region of New South Wales.

 

Occupying a 14,000sqm site, part of the former Pasminco mining company’s land, the development will be Costco’s fourth warehouse in the state and the 12th in Australia.

 

"It's a dynamic area, it's growing, it's the centre demographically of the entire coastal region here," Patrick Noone, managing director of Costco Australia, said.

 

"We'll start building as soon as the development application is approved and open some time in August next year," he said.

 

The Pasminco smelter closed in 2003 and left a toxic legacy of heavy metal contamination after more than 100 years of operation.

 

Local independent MP Greg Piper said the site had been "absolutely fully remediated" and all contaminated material was being kept in a capped containment cell on site.