Office Depot to buy rival OfficeMax - Feb. 20, 2013

Shocked it took this long to be honest.

This seems as though it would impact Norman more than other cities in the area. Norman has both brands with a retail outfit (Depot at UNP, Max on Ed Noble). Norman is also home to Max's national sales office across from the Postal center on Hwy 9. I would have to imagine that the Norman office is probably not going to make it through the acquisition. From what I remember of being in there once, it is pretty old and a lot of outdated equipment. Drove by recently and not a lot of cars in the parking lot and they always seem to be having constant hiring. Of course they could look at the office as an opportunity to revamp things and put a new focus on it.

As far as the stores goes. Obviously the Office Max location is the one that will probably get the ax. So there will be yet another empty store front there. ULTA and soon Michaels will be vanishing from there. At some point the city needs to work to relocate the retail away from there, put it in UNP, and refocus the area around expanding residential and business offices in that area.