Proposed renovations to Oak Tree liquor store scaled back

Renovations at the Oak Tree liquor store will not be going ahead as originally planned.The store was supposed to close in February for 14 weeks for renovations at an estimated cost of $800,000.

Those upgrades included a bigger walk-in cooler, an expanded wine section, relocating the store's office, a tasting area and dealing with bad lighting in some parts of the store.

Butwhenthe P.E.I. Liquor Control Commission issueda tender for the project, the estimates came back more expensive than expected, said Jamie MacLeod, acting CEO of the commission.

"It was in excess of a million dollars," he said.

The renovations have been scaled back to include upgrades to the cooler and fixing lighting issues in some areas of the store.

"The old cooler is not up to the current standards," he said.

"The new cooler will be made with insulated aluminum walls, it will also have a door, asliding door to it,so obviously it'll be a more energy efficient unit."

He also said the new cooler will be larger and able to accommodate more product.

'Brighten up the store'

The old suspended ceiling will be removed as part of the upgrades as well, MacLeod said.

"That will allow us to paint the under deck of the roof to brighten up the store," he said.

"Coinciding with that, we'll install some additional lighting, which will not only brighten up the store interior, but it'll also be energy efficient lighting fixtures."

This change in plans will come with a cheaper price tag, said MacLeod.

"We expect it to come in well below what the pricing for the full job was when we originally tendered it out," he said.

And with less work going on, MacLeod said he hopes the doors will stay open during renovations.

"But, if in fact it is determined that the store would need to be closed we anticipate it to be for a short period of time."

If that were to happen, the commission said it would notify the public of any necessary closures.

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