Home Depot’s Plans in Cold Storage

The grand opening of a new store in Massena, N.Y., by The Home Depot Inc. (Atlanta) has been postponed from January to April 2005, and the winter season may be the reason.

The city sits in far northern New York State, just a few miles from the St. Lawrence River and the Canadian border, where winters tend to be severe.

The retailer says it won’t open its doors at the Route 37 site until the third week of April. Home Depot spokesman Don Harrison said he doesn’t know what caused the postponement, but said sometimes grand openings are pushed back until the spring — “when things warm up a bit” — for a better turnout.

Or it may be that winter elements have slowed construction. “During the winter, construction is at the whim of the weather,” he said.

Home Depot’s site plan for a proposed 126,000-square-foot store at the former Ames Plaza was approved in February 2004, its building permit was issued in May for the $4 million project and it has until May 2005 to complete construction.