The mayor of Altona says the decision by Supreme Basics to close down its Altona branch facility caught him by surprise.

Melvin Klassen said the company has been a stable part of Altona's business community for many years and he's disappointed by this development.

"They were a very stable operation, and I hadn't heard that they were in any financial difficulty."

The Regina based office product supplier says the decision to close was part of an overall plan to restructure its operations in Canada. It plans to close up shop in Altona by April 2018, which will put about 24 people out of work.

"We did try to reach out to their national management team to try and meet with them to see how things were going," said Klassen. However, we were never able to get them to sit down with us."

The building that Supreme is located in on 6th Street N.E. is owned by Friesens Corporation and the mayor is hopeful the building won't be vacant for too long once Supreme moves out.

"We want to work with Friesens through the Altona Community Development Corporation. In fact, Friesens wants to meet with certain businesses because they, like us, want to grow the town. So, we want to meet with them to see what we can do together as a partnership to make sure that Altona continues to move forward."