CANAC PLANS MORE OPENINGS, PREPARES TO START WORK ON ITS FIRST ONTARIO SITE

The independent retail chain Canac recently held the grand opening of its 30th store. It’s located in Prévost, Que.

According to Jean Laberge, president of Canac, this latest store is modelled after its Notre-Dame-des-Prairies store, which opened a year ago. That location represented an investment of $8 million and employs 90 people. It was also Canac’s first store in the Lanaudière region of Quebec.

The main structure of the Notre-Damedes-Prairies store is 42,000 square feet in size, with 28,000 square feet of selling space. Another building, which serves as the warehouse and is unheated, is 31,500 square feet in size. Laberge notes that the latest store, following the mould of its predecessors, represents no major changes in concept or merchandising.

However, that retail formula has proven to be a winning one. The company has been expanding aggressively in recent years, adding about one store per year, and Laberge expects this kind of growth to continue. Construction is slated to begin on a new location on Montreal’s south shore in La Prairie, Que., he says. That store will be at the corner of Autoroute 30 and Route 104, between Candiac and Brossard.

Last fall, Canac acquired a one-million-square-foot property adjacent to its Drummondville distribution centre. According to Laberge, construction will begin there this fall on a large warehouse to handle distribution of the company’s building materials, including plywood, foam and all wood products.

The expansion of Canac’s back-end support keeps in step with the company’s