The 100th year of operations at a popular northwest gardening centre will also be the store’s last as ownership has announced the sale of the property to an unnamed developer.

Grant and Warren Jensen, third generation owners of Sunnyside Greenhouses Ltd., announced Tuesday that the store in the 3400 block of 69 Street N.W., near the intersection of Sarcee Trail and the Trans-Canada Highway, would close at the end of the year.

“Sunnyside Greenhouses Ltd. and its management and staff are extremely proud to announce that 2018 is our 100th anniversary of operations in Calgary,” said the Jensens in the letter dated March 13, 2018 to their ‘friends, colleagues and business associates’. “At the same time, however, we must also announce that 2018 is our last year of operations at Sunnyside Greenhouses Ltd. We have very recently entered into a formalized purchase contract selling the Sunnyside store site and surrounding property to a well-respected and significant developer in Canada.”

Sunnyside Greenhouses was established in 1918 in the community of Sunnyside and the business relocated to its current location in Bowness in 1965.

Colleen McCracken, executive director of the Calgary Horticultural Society, says the impending closure of Sunnyside ends an era in Calgary and she hopes it’s not the start of a trend where other garden centres follow suit.

“We value the role that garden centres play in Calgary,” said McCracken.  They have really good products and service. Most of the people understand about plants and they can help people pick the right plant for the right place.”

“We really appreciate all of them so it’s sad to see one of them go.”

In the parking lot of the 13 acre retail location on Wednesday, customers expressed their disappointment with the impending closure of Sunnyside Greenhouses Ltd.

One customer, who requested that her name be withheld, said the building was filled with happy memories from her childhood.  “I’ve been coming here since I could walk. My mom and dad would bring me here and I would run through the aisles and play in the plants.”

“Lots of great memories like smells, sights and sounds of this place. It just makes me so happy. That’s why I came here today, because I needed a happy place.”

William Jackson says he has been shopping at the garden centre for decades. “They have a good variety and they were always reasonably priced, you know. So I kind of thought they would stay on but the land’s too valuable down in this end of town.”

Jackson says there was a sense of the familiar at the store. You’d see the same faces too when you came down and it was a neighbourly thing.”

“It’s gonna be missed, no doubt about it.”

The Jensens have not revealed the developer’s plans for the property but, in their letter, stated their support for the project.

“We see the development of our site as having great potential to be a beautiful mixed use development for Bowness and something our neighbours and friends can all be proud of. We support these plans and strongly endorse these development efforts going forward.”

With files from CTV’s Jordan Kanygin