Business View Caribbean | October 2019

73 BUSINESS VIEW CARIBBEAN OCTOBER 2019 DO IT CENTER D o It Center is on a mission to change the landscape of hardware shopping and lumber yards in Dominica. In November 2018, well-known Dominica businessman, Karl Nassief, opened Do It Center (DIC) as a one- stop shopping center, catering to DIYers and contractors; embracing the motto “Your partner in home improvement.” Karl and the Nassief Group of Companies, owners of Auto Trade, KFC, Fine Foods Inc., and several other successful local businesses, chose to locate Do It Center along the Edward Oliver Leblanc Highway on Goodwill Road in Roseau – the site of a previous commercial building that was devastated by Hurricane Maria. Ms. Evadney Esprit, General Manager of Do It Center Dominica, explains, “We are a new business – the owners had a hardware store before, but it was destroyed by the hurricane in Sept 2017. After that, they decided to sign up with the U.S.- based Do It Best company that is headquartered in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and our Do It Center was opened in Nov. 2018. It has progressed very good in this first year. As a hardware store, we carry everything from A to Z. It’s the only one of its kind on Dominica. The opening was very timely with all of the rebuilding that’s currently happening on the island after the hurricane.” Dominica’s state of recovery from a rebuilding perspective stands at about 90 percent and many of the residents that left the island after the Your partner in home improvement