The Heatherbrae Bunnings team has been working at full speed this week to have the new store ready in time for opening on Sunday.
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As an early Christmas ‘gift’ to the public, the store will be open for trade between noon and 7pm on December 17.
From Monday, December 18, the store will be open for regular trading hours. According to the Bunnings website, the new Heatherbrae store will be open 7am to 9pm Monday to Wednesday and 7am to 10pm on Thursday.
A number of opening activities will be held at the store and in the carpark in January.
Raymond Terrace Men’s Shed will have first honours of running the community Bunnings sausage sizzle outside the store on Monday.
Bunnings gave the Examiner a sneak peak inside the store on Friday.
While almost completely ready for trade on Sunday, tradesmen were still fitting out the cafe and staff filling shelves with stock.
The $18 million Bunnings Warehouse has replaced Masters.
Masters had been trading in Heatherbrae for two years before owners Woolworths announced all stores would be closed by the end of 2016.
A group of wealthy families and investors operating under the platform of Home Consortium purchased all 61 of the Masters sites across Australia as well as 21 development sites.
Home Consortium expressed an interest in converting the Heatherbrae store into a small homemakers centre.
However, this did not occur. Instead, Home Consortium on-sold former Masters sites at Heatherbrae, Bankstown and Frenchs Forest in October.
Shortly after, Bunnings reached an agreement with the new land owner to convert the former Masters Heatherbrae into a new Bunnings Warehouse.
Conversion work on transforming the warehouse from blue to green began soon after.
Heatherbrae Bunnings spans more than 12,000 square metres.
Store features include an indoor timber trade sales area with a three-lane drive-through, building materials and landscape supplies yard, kitchen and bathroom displays, an extensive tile display, cafe and outdoor nursery.
The new Bunnings store has a staff of 130, many of which are new to the company.