Western Bearing and Auto Parts in Portage la Prairie is expanding.

You may have noticed the construction in between 3rd Street NE and Royal Road on Saskatchewan Avenue the last couple week. Western Bearing owner Doug Borland says it was time for an expansion to help improve the business. 

Borland's excited about the new space they'll have once the work is completed. (Photo by Aaron Wilgosh)

"We're adding 5,000 square feet to our showroom, and we've got a mezzanine that's going to be a conference room that will also be part of that, so it'll be around 6,500 square feet in total," says Borland. "We need the extra space to be able to show our stuff and let customers know what we carry."

Construction began a few weeks ago and started with the tear down of the old New Era Paints building. Borland says it's been four years in the making.

The front of the store along Saskatchewan Avenue in Portage la Prairie. (Photo by Aaron Wilgosh)

"We used to do all our custom work in the back room and added on to it about three years ago," says Borland. "With that, we moved all the custom equipment into there. With this one, we just needed to make storage room and we were able to get everything in there during this construction period."

Borland says they'll hopefully be able to move in and set things up around January of 2018.