St. Albert’s former Rona store is up for sale.
In late August, Rona’s head office announced that Totem Building Supplies in St. Albert would be transformed into Rona. The change was part of a companywide rebranding scheme of Totem stores across the province.
At the time, neither Rona nor local store representatives would comment on what would happen with the existing Rona store on Inglewood Drive.
That location had been privately owned for 13 years – first as Home Hardware then as a Rona for the last four years. The owner sold the location to Rona last year.
“The building is for sale now and the last information I received was that we were selling it ourselves,” said Rona spokesperson ValĂ©rie Lamarre.
“But the idea of getting a real estate agent to help us wasn’t out of the question.”
Totem’s name change became official on Jan. 1, 2013, but the Inglewood location has been closed since Nov. 18. The store has since been cleared of its inventory, which was moved to the new Rona location (a rebranded Totem store) at the north end of St. Albert next to The Home Depot.
Rona tries to relocate as many employees as possible when closing a store, Lamarre said. Rona’s Inglewood location had 29 employees.
“Close to 20 employees accepted our offer,” she said.
“We also had to evaluate our staffing needs at the other location and in the process six positions were terminated.”
At this point, Lamarre could not comment whether anyone expressed interest in buying the property.
