The Co-Op group of companies adds one more asset to their commercial collection, this week. The former Husky gas bar and convenience store in Burns Lake has been re-imagined under the new Co-Op banner.
The site was closed for a week before re-opening on Monday (Feb. 13) with a new look, feel, and company structure. It is the latest in a set of 10 such sites that Co-Op has purchased for conversion. Kitimat and Terrace are already swapped over, each with a one-week closure, and now Burns Lake.
“The sites look fantastic. I might be biased, here, I’ve been involved in Co-Op for 32 years, and it’s lovely to see that red shield go up, the signs, the canopies, the inside and outside updates, it just looks fantastic,” said Allan Bieganski, general manager at Four Rivers Co-op in Vanderhoof where this branch of the commercial association is based.
The conversion process requires paint, decals, graphics, bathroom upgrades, and a full update of the fuel dispensers. Behind the scenes there are some changes in how the purchasing and inventorying is done, as well as the accounting, but it is a quick and generally seamless switchover.
Bieganski said the process was helped greatly by the large proportion of management and staff that have been retained at each location.
Co-Op already had a pair of regular public fuel stations (Vanderhoof and Prince George), plus a network of 15 commercial card-lock fuel locations, so they had a strong working knowledge of the industry, but as part of this acquisition, they added a pair of staff positions - a gas bar division manager and a project and facilities manager - specifically as part of this growth.
“That has been so key to the transition from Husky to Co-Op,” Bieganski said. “We’ve never had this opportunity, the first time our division has gotten in on so many sites at the same time. Normally we are building a site here, or buying a site there. This is our first transaction this large.”
Anyone can buy fuel and other items at any of these Co-Op locations, but there are 35,000 Co-Op members across the north-central region of the province, and for them there are additional perks. Bieganski said that membership doesn’t apply to any of the locations that still have the Husky facade, but Burns Lake and the two others already converted will now be able to process the membership numbers for those linked customers.
“We are planning three clusters of grand openings, each one being four weeks in duration,” said Bieganski.
Terrace, Kitimat and Burns Lake comprise one cluster. The three in Prince George plus the Quesnel location will have their own grand opening festivities as a unit. The two Williams Lake and one 100 Mile House location will have a different grand opening period together.
Each cluster’s grand opening month will have unique features like giveaways, prizes and other specials.
“We have worked hard to have door prizes unique to those communities,” such as a dinner and wine tasting for four at Northern Lights Estate Winery, for the Prince George-Quesnel cluster.
The fuel at each location comes from a variety of sources. The Tidewater refinery in Prince George makes most of the gasoline the stations will use, while the association’s own Federated Co-Op refinery in Regina trains in most of the diesel. Other suppliers are also involved.
The Quesnel conversion will begin in one month, the rest of the Cariboo in the successive one-week increments after that.