Kevon Felmine

One hun­dred new jobs have been cre­at­ed with the open­ing of the fifth branch of JTA Su­per­mar­ket at C3 Cen­tre, Corinth, Ste Madeleine, yes­ter­day.

Scores of cus­tomers crowd­ed the en­trance as south Trinidad's lat­est mul­ti­mil­lion-dol­lar in­vest­ment was opened by chair­man emer­i­tus of JT Al­lum and Com­pa­ny Ltd, Carl Mack, and San Fer­nan­do May­or Kaz­im Ho­sein.

JTA Su­per­mar­kets man­ag­ing di­rec­tor, Christo­pher Mack, said the mul­ti-storey build­ing was a sig­nif­i­cant in­vest­ment and was a state­ment of the com­pa­ny's con­fi­dence in the fu­ture of T&T. He said JTA Su­per­mar­kets will do what it can to in­vest in the growth and de­vel­op­ment of the lo­cal ser­vice sec­tors.

"I think for us, cer­tain­ly in south Trinidad, if you look at the am­bi­ence here, it cer­tain­ly rais­es the bar. I think any­body from South would know JTA has the best prices and val­ue so for us, it is about rais­ing the bar.

"Es­pe­cial­ly in a re­ces­sion­ary time, know­ing that you have a des­ti­na­tion that is first-class, yet when you are look­ing for val­ue, it is go­ing to be here in JTA," Mack said.

With 50,000 square feet of shop­ping area, JTA C3 in­cludes an in-store phar­ma­cy, fresh meats de­pot, pro­duce area, bak­ery, deli, juice bar and sec­tions for wines and spir­its, par­ty items, fresh flow­ers, bulk items, ap­pli­ances, home items and pre­pared foods.

Lo­cat­ed be­tween Corinth Road and the Solomon Ho­choy High­way, Mack said it al­lows for easy ac­cess from its sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties.

"It is a great lo­ca­tion be­cause of the con­ges­tion in­side of the city of San Fer­nan­do. Traf­fic is be­com­ing more of an is­sue, so cer­tain­ly a de­vel­op­ment such as this, lo­cat­ed strate­gi­cal­ly along the Solomon Ho­choy High­way has the ben­e­fit of an easy ac­cess.

"From the high­way, there is Princes Town in the East, the com­mu­ni­ties ex­tend­ing South and we have San Fer­nan­do to our West as well."

Al­ready with a large em­ploy­ee base through their Carl­ton Cen­tre, Cross Cross­ing, Mara­bel­la and Cou­va branch­es, he said JTA C3 has cre­at­ed at least 100 new jobs di­rect­ly and has pro­vid­ed op­por­tu­ni­ties for ser­vice part­ners.

The su­per­mar­ket is the first busi­ness to open at the 600,000 square-foot C3 Cen­tre, which is still un­der con­struc­tion. Its plan in­cludes a mall, plaza and the much an­tic­i­pat­ed Movi­eTowne's eight-screen cine­plex. Oth­er busi­ness­es ex­pect­ed are Chuck-E-Cheese's and Galac­ti­ca. A food court and out­door court­yard, ca­su­al din­ing restau­rants and so­lar-pow­ered sky­lights are some of the oth­er fea­tures in­clud­ed in the project.