Ron Henry Jewellers will join other retailers on Huntsville’s Main Street this summer

Ron Henry Jewellers, a fixture in the community since 1971, is moving back to its roots on Huntsville’s Main Street.

“I’m totally excited to move back to Main Street, I’m so looking forward to it,” said owner Heather Leonard. “Main Street is really getting nice and vibrant again and I know from past experience that summertime, especially downtown, is where it’s at,” she said, adding that she’s is also looking forward to the store having its own outside entrance, “especially with what’s going on in the world right now.”

Leonard’s trajectory with the business has been a long one.

Leonard started working at the store’s downtown location in 1979 as a part-time student. In 1986 she would buy into the business which would open a second location at the then newly built mall.

“We were one of the very first tenants to come into the mall,” she recalled.

In 2001 the downtown location closed, and Leonard bought the business outright from Ron Henry. “It’s been a long, good journey and something that I’ve always really loved. There’s really not a day that I get up and think, ugh, I have to go to work today. I get up and I’m really happy to come into work because every day in retail is different and I like dealing with people, whether it’s good times, happy times, sad times – we see it all. We do see all of the moments in people’s lives and at this point, we’ve dealt with the younger generations and their parents and their grandparents and in some cases their great-grandparents. So, generations of customers that we’ve looked after.”

Leonard, who was born and raised in Huntsville, has seen many changes in the community. “I was born in 1964 and born in the old hospital which is now Fairvern so I have seen a lot of changes in Huntsville. And I mean, personally, I think all positive.”

She said people have been critical of the mall over the last few years “which I totally get. You know it’s sitting half-vacant at this point but in my mind the owners, Effort Trust, of the mall had a plan and their plan probably was at some point, as malls are not as popular as they used to be, or smaller malls I’ll say, you know they were kind of happy to let the vacancies sit because they had a plan to push some big box stores through.”

A couple of weeks before Christmas, the store was told that the mall needed their space and announced that Giant Tiger would be going in. “I do know that there’s a second big box [store]coming in, what that is I don’t know,” said Leonard.

She said they were given a chance to relocate to what Effort Trust has referred to as a ‘residual mall’ on the grocery store side of the building, but Leonard opted out. “If the mall was lively and vibrant and full, I would’ve been quite happy to stay here for lots of reasons, parking, easy accessibility for customers, I like that about this location, but as the mall started to empty out there were less and less reasons to stay,” she explained.

The store has six full- and part-time employees as well as two full-time goldsmiths and a full-time watchmaker.

Custom-made jewellery and watch and jewellery repair are a big part of the store’s business. Leonard said based on the phone numbers people leave when dropping off watches or jewellery to get them fixed, many numbers are not local to the area so Huntsville is definitely growing. “Lots of out-of-town phone numbers but that’s all good. That’s good for us,” she said, although lamenting how expensive things like real estate have become. “I feel sorry for our kids that are starting out. It’s a hard go for them.”

The new store is scheduled to open at the Tarrison Centre at 19 Main Street East sometime this June.

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