By Lisa Blainey-LewinTake a walk into the newly renovated Maleny IGA and have a look around.  Retail space has increased by 50 percent, with the deli, meat and produce sections all moving to new locations.Art4Place art installations, above the new front-end and produce sections, are inspired by the Maleny and Glass House landscape.  Tasmanian oak floor boards continue in the new sections and Maleny bunya pine is showcased in the new gourmet display shelves and fresh produce bins.Managing director of Maleny IGA Rob Outridge said, “The bunya pine came down in Cyclone Oswald in January 2013. David Linton had the pine and milled it for us, and then our shopfitters made the feature pieces in the gourmet and fresh produce [sections].  The effect when you walk into this area, combined with the wonderful Obi artwork by Arts4Place, gives us the exact effect we wanted and feels great.”A large part of the expensive renovations are invisible to shoppers- the entire underneath of Maleny IGA was excavated, making space for the main cold and freezer rooms, with bulk storage to move downstairs with the loading bay, home delivery and butchery departments.  A goods lift has been installed, linking the downstairs to the upstairs retail space. The resulting additional retail floor space was complemented by an extension to the property line on the boundary shared with Humphries and Fisk Maleny Property Sales and Rentals.Construction officially began in October 2013 with the rear car park reconfiguration.  This was a mandatory part of Council’s approval process and granted grocery trucks access to unload at the rear of the store. It also added six car parking spaces at the back and three additional parks on Maple St.A surprise discovery was found underneath the old fresh produce flooring-  hundred-year-old hoop pine floor boards. The flooring was in perfect condition and after decades of being hidden away it is now featured in wood panel outside the deli, produce and meat counters.New grocery fixtures were required throughout to hold additional stock. New fridges have been systemically installed and a number of innovative changes have been made.  Heat is now reclaimed from Maleny IGA downstairs motor room and used to pre-heat 40 – 60 percent of the hot water used in the store.  In winter, this same reclaimed heat is vented into the store as heating.Rob Outridge said, “We wanted something different for our customers and we spoke to our refrigeration specialists who custom built a dried aged beef cabinet in our meat servery area- complete with $5000 of Himalayan salt bricks. Dried-aged beef, to the best of our knowledge, has not been available on the Coast before, only in Brisbane and our butchers have been excited to introduce this to our customers.”When queried about an official opening Rob Outridge said, “Frankly we are too exhausted to even think of it at the moment but with so many people to thank, builders, staff, customers and all the stakeholders involved, we will have something down the track.  The beauty of working with local tradespeople is that they got to showcase their skills and talents right here, in Maleny, and it lead to a happy work environment for the entire build, and that’s what we wanted.”New Trading Hours: 6am – 9pm, 7 days a week.