Lowe's Canada History

Today's post will be a look back on Lowe's Canadian operations from their 2007 launch till the sale of their stores in 2023.

Early stores

Lowe's held grand openings for their first three Canadian stores between December 14th -16th, 2007. Thanks to the Wayback Machine, I was able to find a list of the first three Lowe’s stores to open in Canada from a December 2007 archive of the Lowe's website. All of these stores are still operating as Rona+ at the time of writing.

Hamilton - 1945 Barton St E, Hamilton, ON L8H 2Y7 - First location to open in Canada.
Brantford - 215 Henry St, Brantford, ON N3S 7R4
South Brampton - 370 Kennedy Rd S, Brampton, ON L6W 4V2

Rona acquisition and rise

Lowe's would end up acquiring Quebec-based home improvement chain Rona in 2016 after a rejected attempt in 2012. Following the Rona acquisition, Lowe's opened a few more locations under both brands and converted some lRona Home and Garden stores to the Lowe's brand as they wanted to re-focus the Rona brand for smaller stores.

Decline and sale

In January 2020, Lowe’s closed about 20 under performing locations.

Lowe's refreshed most of their Canadian stores with their blue 2020s decor before selling them.

In 2023, Lowe’s sold their Canadian operations off to American Private equity company Sycamore Partners. Lowe's Canada site shut down on December 7th, 2023 with it redirecting to Rona's site after. Most Lowe’s and Rona Home & Garden (and later remaining Reno-Depot stores in Quebec) locations were gradually re-branded as Rona+ by 2024. Some overlapping Lowe’s and Rona stores closed outright and never re-branded.

That was a overview of Lowe's Canadian operations. I hope that the Rona brand continues to exist and doesn't end up in the retail graveyard.

Until the next post,

Dom

Sources used

Archived version of Lowe's Canada Website from December 2007

Archived version of Lowe's Canada home page from November 2023

Wikipedia

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