But the store is not going very far — it’s relocating just up the road to the corner of Broadway and Caribou Road on a parcel of land left vacant by a fire that destroyed five businesses in 2002.
The businesses were spread over three properties. Joe Tippett of HTH Investments said, after a lengthy process, his company has purchased two of them — the spaces that had been occupied by the Bible Truth Supply and Broadway Textiles.
Tippett’s company will be constructing a two-storey, 5,000-square-foot building on the property, about 3,600 feet of which will be leased to Dulux Paints.
Terry Andrews, Dulux Paints’ sales rep for western Newfoundland, said the company has outgrown its current location. He said business has more than doubled in the last five years, and that trend is expected to continue.
Andrews said the Corner Brook store will be one of three hub stores in the province that supply smaller dealers.
“The inventory will be on the island instead of waiting 14 days for us to get freight, which is normally a big problem for us,” he said. “At least now all the dealers within one of the three hub stores on the island they’ll be able to draw paint locally instead of having to depend on Ontario.”
Besides dealers, Andrews said the store will continue to serve its wholesale contractor customers and public retail customers.
This is the sixth building that Tippett’s company has constructed for Dulux Paints and the plan for it has been in the works for a while.
“We showed them various sites around Corner Brook and they liked that site best,” he said. “They have their existing building there, their competition is there, it’s a traditional retail area in the community and they felt quite strongly that that site would be excellent for them.”
But Tippett added it has been a struggle getting everything in place because of “a couple of little environmental issues” that delayed the final sale of one of the properties.
After the fire, all of the foundations were not dug up and some material left after the blaze had been dumped back into the hole and covered over, Tippett said.
In December, part of the area was dug up for soil testing, but Tippett said the land sale has since closed after the results came back all clear.
On Monday, another hurdle in the project was overcome during a Corner Brook city council meeting. The company had applied for a variance to accommodate the project, and council approved the recommendation of the city’s planning department to reduce the building construction standards for that particular area.
Drawings for the building are 85 per cent completed and the company will soon be applying for a building permit from the city. Tippett is hoping for an April 1 start on construction.
The building has been designed so that the facade will match others in the area. Besides Dulux it will also house two one-bedroom apartments on the upper level.
“They’re funky units,” said Tippett, noting a lot of time was spent on their design.
Tippett also said there will be ample onsite parking available, and this is something the company has worked hard on ensuring with the city and its engineering and planning groups.
dcrocker@thewesternstar.com
Twitter: WS_DianeCrocker
You seem bent. I'm fine. Vinyl siding is simply an environmental and aesthetic abomination, invented to sell to primarily lazy homeowners to make money. But you wouldn't know but I insulted a "great Newfoundland tradition"....which in a very Freudian way, is very much my point: Newfoundlanders are completely in love with vinyl siding. BTW: vinyl siding does indeed exist in NS.