NORMAL - One of two closed Normal Wendy's restaurants will reopen early next month. Wendnormal Realty LLC, based in Bloomington, purchased the site at 1600 E. College Ave, from Wendy's International Inc. for $550,000.

Joe Francois of Bloomington, president of Wendnormal, expects the fast food restaurant will reopen April 6.

"Normal deserves a Wendy's," Francois said. "It was a great location there before. It did very well sales-wise. With the renovations we're doing, it should do even better."

The company spent $400,000 to remodel the local chain. It has replaced the roof and is redoing the dining room, kitchen and bathrooms as well as fixing the parking lot and doing landscape work, Francois said.

Francois hired 35 employees for his Normal restaurant. Dining room hours will be 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily. The drive-through will remain open until midnight.

The College Avenue Wendy's is the second for the company. Wendnormal also opened a Springfield location at the end of January. It has plans to keep growing, Francois said.

"We hope to have six to 10 when we're all done," he said.

The company is eyeing closed Wendy's locations in Champaign and East Peoria and is considering building a couple new buildings in Bloomington, Francois said.

One location he will not reopen is Normal's second shuttered Wendy's at 1315 S. Main St. Francois said Wendy's International sold that building and land to someone else, and it will not be a Wendy's.

Wendy's International did not return phone calls to discuss the fate of the Main Street eatery.

Both Wendy's restaurants in Normal, along with about two dozen others in Missouri and Illinois, closed in September after franchise operator WenAmerica LLC of Chesterfield, Mo., experienced financial troubles.

The company owes the town of Normal about $70,000 in unpaid taxes, among its other debts.

WenAmerica is still in bankruptcy court in Missouri. The town of Normal is waiting until the case makes its way through the courts before it decides what further action it will take to collect what it's due, said Normal attorney Wayne Karplus.

A third Twin City location at 1522 W. Market St. in Bloomington is owned by another company and has not been affected.