Prince George experienced its own version of Black Wednesday with two major retailers announcing their decision to close.
Lowe’s will be leaving its location at the Pine Centre Mall in February impacting 109 employees while Northern Hardware will be closing up shop shortly after, ending a century-long run in the downtown core.
Chamber of Commerce CEO Todd Corrigall spoke to MyPGNow.com on what can be done moving forward so that this doesn’t happen again.
“Digesting it is challenging. What we have to do in these types of situations is to engage with our businesses and understand what’s going on in our areas and what can we do to help support that whether its policies, taxation and have a very open dialogue on what can be done to help facilitate a healthy business environment.”
He adds losing “The Northern” is a huge blow given its historic significance downtown.
“The northern is really a flagship store of downtown Prince George with over 100 years of service so the challenges become what do we do to re-focus that energy and look for new opportunities.”
About 109 employees will be impacted by the Lowe’s closure at the Pine Centre Mall but Corrigall thinks the negative can be turned into a positive.
“If there is a potential silver lining through this process is hopefully the employees being impacted could find greater employment opportunities and be able to stay as great contributors in our city.”
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