RONA+ celebrated its grand opening in Belleville on Thursday.
The home improvement retailer is located at 219 Millennium Parkway, the site of the old Lowe’s.
Back in June, RONA announced it would be rebranding 10 Lowe’s stores across Ontario to the RONA+ branding.
Store Manager Brandi McConnell says the community has reacted positively to their rebranding.
“The biggest thing is that when a customer thinks, oh my lord, you’re changing, right? What is going to change? You know what, you’re gonna get that same customer service when you come in here,” McConnell tells media.
“We want to serve our customers. We want to be local in our community. We want to make sure that anyone that comes to our store knows that it’s family here and we treat everyone as family even as a customer.”
What is the + in RONA+? McConnell says it’s the same quality service while offering lower prices.
“The plus is around all the new lower prices.” McConnell says.
“We have close to almost 10,000 price changes that we did to help our customers out in the store.”
All-Together Affordable Housing Corporation President Bob Cottrel delivering a speech during the grand opening of RONA+ in Belleville. September 21, 2023. (Photo: Zach McGibbon/Quinte News)
As part of the grand opening, RONA+ also announced that it would be contributing to All-Together Affordable Housing Corporation as part of its Home Sweet Home campaign.
All-Together Affordable Housing Corporation President Bob Cottrell says he was surprised and honoured to be a part of the campaign.
“We were not familiar with it, but when we saw that it was RONA behind that I said, well, it’s a perfect fit,” Cottrell tells media.
“I remember during COVID, our main supplier couldn’t supply us with all the fridges we needed. So guess where we got those fridges? We came here.”
As part of the rebranding to RONA+, the RONA at 260 Bell Boulevard will be closing.
McConnell says there have been no employee layoffs at the Belleville location as a result of the transition from Lowe’s to RONA+.
“We have the same employees plus we have new employees,” McConnell said.
“Everyone has remained here throughout and we’re building it even more because that’s what we need to do.”
McConnell says 130 associates work at the RONA+ location.
RONA+ employees as well as members from MPPs Ric Bresee’s and Shelby Kramp-Neuman’s offices, including former MPP Daryl Kramp, chainsawing through a grand opening log. September 21, 2023. (Photo: Zach McGibbon/Quinte News)
