The future is uncertain for a familiar hardware outlet in St. Albert.
Barry Campbell, owner and manager of the privately owned Rona location on Inglewood Drive, has been in talks to sell his operation to the Rona Corporation.
“This has been a long time coming,” he said in mid-October, adding he decided to sell the business back in February. “There’s been a lot of negotiations along the way and we finally got to the resolution.”
This resolution, however, is still in the works.
“Things are breaking down, without saying too much,” he said this week. “We’re still, really, pretty much just undecided about what’s happening.”
Campbell planned to enter retirement on Monday, although that has since been delayed.
Rona head office declined to provide new information and would not discuss future plans for the store.
“With the Totem store being rebranded into a Rona in St. Albert, we’re still looking into different options for the region. We are not ready to disclose further information at this point,” said company spokesperson Valerie Lamarre by email.
Campbell has worked in the home improvement business for the last 35 years and stood at the helm of the business since it was built 13 years ago.
Four years ago, the store transformed from a Home Hardware outlet to Rona. Campbell said he could not comment on future plans for the store.
However, he said current employees will not be affected.
“Everybody here is ready to go forward. They see some really good opportunities with Rona because they’re now part of a larger organization with more opportunities individually,” he said.
Rona’s head office announced in late August that Totem Building Supplies stores throughout the province would be transformed into Rona stores as part of a companywide rebranding scheme.
At the time of the announcement, neither representatives from Rona’s head office nor local store representatives would discuss the future of the existing Rona location on Inglewood Drive.
A total of 17 Totem stores across Alberta were purchased by Rona in 2004 for $100 million. Despite the buyout, operations continued in the same manner under the same banner.
Rona spokesperson Dave Carr told the St. Albert Gazette in August that the change to Rona locations comes at a time when consumers are no longer responding to big-box stores the same way.
“We’re at a point right now where we think we have to evolve to make sure we’re in line with what the customers are expecting from us,” he said, adding the transformation will combine the best of Totem and Rona to create the “proximity model.”
The change includes cosmetic modifications and the introduction and removal of various products. The name change is official as of Jan. 1, 2013.
All Totem locations are expected to be converted into Rona outlets by the end of the first quarter of 2013.
