By ERWIN CHLANDA
Bunnings has now confirmed the Alice Springs Online exclusive report last Thursday that the hardware giant is coming to town.
The firm is moving to buy a two hectare block at 218 North Stuart Highway (Lot 9186 – see map above).
The vendors are builder Phil Danby and businessman Steven Brouwer.
Mr Danby says they have signed a confidentiality agreement with Bunnings and cannot comment.
According to public documents, the buyers of the land are Bunnings Properties Pty Ltd of Rose Hill, NSW, and the National Australia Bank in Alice Springs is listed under “other parties”.
The land is zoned Light Industry and the most recent application listed on the title was in 2000 to construct two showrooms / sales warehouses for retail use.
In a media release today (Monday) Bunnings says the new warehouse, if approved, will create more than 110 jobs for local residents.
“Bunnings plans to invest more than $23 million in the new warehouse which will have a total store size of more than 12,000 square metres consisting of a main warehouse, kid’s playground, nursery, café, and parking for over 200 cars.”
Chief Operating Officer, Peter Davis, says Bunnings is committed towards supporting local communities and there will be “on-the-job training opportunities for local residents and school leavers.
“The project is estimated to create an additional 160 jobs during the construction phase.
“Bunnings is committed to working toward carbon neutral growth and long term footprint reduction [through] a number of energy and water saving design features,” says Mr Davis.
Yeh, great! More small business to the wall. More profits extracted from the town and spent elsewhere, just what Alice doesn’t need heading into a downturn.
What do you mean? They are locals who own the “franchise” for Bunnings just like Mitre 10 and Home Timber are [locally] owned. I think it will be good maybe the other stores will pull up their socks. Now we just need someone to give Kmart a shake up.
This is great news for Alice Springs!
The quality of their stock is appalling, their timber supply comes from unsustainable / endangered forests, and every item is over packaged. Great.Alice Springs News Online:
BUNNINGS RESPONDS upon invitation from
Bunnings is committed to working toward carbon neutral growth and long
term footprint reduction and in keeping with this, the proposed Bunnings
Warehouse will implement a number of energy and water saving design
features.
Bunnings also has a zero tolerance approach to illegal timber in its
supply chain with more than 99 per cent of the timber products sourced
from low risk plantations or other verified legal or certified
sustainable forest operations.
Competition is very important. For too long there hasn’t been any. Businesses can get away with charging what they want. Bunnings also put a lot into their communities. They supply equipment and manpower for needs of organizations and they have a budget to do this type of stuff.
It’s what Alice springs needs. I’m all for giving back to the community but not when everything I buy is triple the price it should be! Competition is great and will only be good for our town – and I’d expect Bunnings to do some major sponsorships, too.
Re KMart- I was there on Saturday morning after a long absence. Car-park 1/4 full, hardly a shopper, staff so rare I took a rest on the customer bench before setting out again to find help. Stock levels poor, many items not in evidence. Was told TVs not stocked for a few years. Was I in KMart? Perhaps they are leaving Alice? Packing up quietly to sneak away?
Let’s not forget the locally owned hardware stores that have been there through the highs and lows of the town’s very cyclical building industry. Also the major investments (improvement) made to make the shopping experience more enjoyable. At the end of the day the extra jobs created by Bunnings will reflect directly on current hardware based jobs and with it service.
Does Steve Brown ever do anything except whinge?
Well, new store Bunnings store opening can be good or bad. Bunnings usually hire a large number of locals (checkout Bunnings jobs here). However, they can seriously damage small businesses in the area.
What size Bunnings are we getting?
It’s great Bunnings is coming to the Alice, hopefully soon. Give the others a run for their money. Bunnings stocks so much more, I’m all for supporting local businesses, but if they don’t have what I’m looking for, I go elsewhere.
I am so glad Bunnings is coming to Alice. Have shopped with them in the other states in the country. Some people have a negative response to the store starting up in Alice. They need to move on. It is 2013.
How can anybody seriously believe that a huge monopoly like Bunnings can ultimately benefit a small isolated town? The Bunnings monolith is not only going to diminish the variety of existing locally-owned competitors, but will necessarily block any future entry by other competitors into the relatively small Alice Springs market.