Photo: Alistair Waters
The Rogerie faces eviction from Orchard Park
A Kelowna business that creates all its products using locally recycled materials might have to find a new storefront.
The Rogerie has been handed a 10-day eviction notice from Orchard Park shopping centre.
Co-founder Brady Rogers says he and partner Angela were caught off guard when they received the notice on Friday. He adds that this comes right when business was starting to pick up at the store, which recently moved to a new location in the mall.
“COVID restrictions were finally lifted, traffic was picking up in our store, and we had tons of great new products ready for what looked like a record-breaking summer,” said Angela, who manages daily operations. “Everything pointed to our mall location being a great long-term thing for us, so we’ve been investing hundreds of hours into renovations and making our store a place people really loved visiting. The possibility of eviction hadn’t even crossed our minds.”
The eviction notice came just days after mall administration notified The Rogerie via email that its new store sign had not been approved and must be removed immediately.
Rogers said he didn’t realize the sign needed pre-approval.
“They just said that any new signage needs to go through their approval process, which we also didn’t know about.
“That was just our own ignorance of the contract, but we didn’t need to get our original sign approved. So we figured surely it’s no big deal to just take down our old one, hang up a new one, same mounting and everything.”
He adds that Orchard Park administration didn’t ever say what was wrong with the sign.
Rogers admits that The Rogerie was in arrears on a utilities bill from December, but says they weren’t aware of the overdue bill until last week.
“If we missed a bill, of course we’ll pay it. Why not give us the opportunity? It’s hard enough dealing with a situation like this, but it’s especially hard when you can’t figure out where you went wrong and learn from your mistakes.”
Castanet reached out to mall management for their side of the story.
“All contracts at Orchard Park are bound by confidentiality restrictions therefore we are unable to comment,” said general manager Catherine Whittingstall via email.
If the eviction notice stands, The Rogerie could be looking for a new location.
“We haven’t really thought that far yet.”
“We’d certainly be interested in one because this store was going well. We were excited about it, but for now we’re probably going to dry our powder and figure out exactly what we are going to do next.”
The Rogerie bills itself as a Kelowna tech start-up which upcycles landfill plastic into everyday homewares using 3D printing. The company began as a farmers’ market booth and now sells their products in over 50 stores across Canada and the US.
It sells products such as self-watering planters, wine glasses, soap dishes, reusable cutlery sets, jewelry and sunglasses.
The Rogerie also recently won the people’s choice award in the Accelerate Okanagan fourth annual OKGN Angel Summit.
