Northern Light
Superstar
You know I think you're awesome...... razzing you periodically for posting etiquette is just a sign of affection. LOL
North York City Centre (Yonge & Sheppard)
Mind you, I suspect that decision was made prior to wholefoods closing :) - not clear to me if that happened more recently they would have considered taking the space and leaving Loblaws. It'll be interesting to debate what could take the wholefoods space - my prediction - it'll stay vacant for...urbantoronto.ca
No Frills will be taking over the former 45,000sqft WholeFoodsMarket retail space at TridelHullmark Centre,... well, at least some of the space, I don't know the size of the incoming NoFrills
Interesting. I hadn't heard about this one, and the demographics for the area seem odd to support this, Food Basics is already across the street. Hmmm
In mid-70's Yonge Sheppard area had Loblaws on Yonge north of Sheppard, Miracle southeast corner of Yonge & Sheppard and then when SheppardCentre opened a Dominion (likely where Winners is now) that only lasted about 1 year!
By 1990s, only Miracle/Metro remains,... then with 2010-2014 redevelopment into Tridel HullmarkCentre Whole Foods Market opened September 2014 - with area monopoly, look busy in front cafe, but supermarket was not busy, couldn't jive the numbers,... always big money loser - I forecasted 2019/2024 closing,...
But Rich Daddy Amazon brought WholeFoodsMarket in 2017,... who saw that coming????Pivot | 125m | 36s | RioCan Living | BDP Quadrangle
Especially since it wasn't his fault, except insofar that Council as a whole made bad decisions.
With renovated YongeSheppardCentre, 40,000sqft Longos opened on 2nd floor in July 2019,..... and after many supermarkets bailing at 2nd floor EmeraldPark (green building) 30,000sqft Food Basics opened October 2021. Yonge & Sheppard was only intersection in Toronto with 3 supermarkets within 100m of intersection.
With WholeFoodsMarket closing in August 2025,.... many hoped for FarmBoy as replacement - not likely since FarmBoy and Longos are both owned by Empire. Best chance for FarmBoy would be if Longos bomb and FarmBoy replace Longos at YongeSheppardCentre.
I don't have the numbers for every store, but my impression is that Longos is significantly out performing Farm Boy.
That WF never functioned on a customer level as a 45,000ft2 store, I walked it, I would have guessed 1/2 that. Was it functioning as a commissary for other stores? That's my first thought. That would be the same mistake as McEwan at Yonge/Bloor (Well there were other mistakes there, but I digress, that was one, who the hell puts a commissary at one of the most expensive intersections in the country?)
Largest NF in the country (That I'm aware of)..... is 55,000ft2.
But that's atypical. A normal, new-build, suburban format is ~40,000ft2
Urban locations are much smaller.
45,000 here would definitely be pushing it. I don't see a compelling reason to do that,
There's a Shoppers across the street, so unless they're at their capacity limits, I don't see moving or setting up a competing pharmacy, but you never know, on the latter, that could be an 'own the market' strategy.
There are larger NF downtown, but certainly none that exceed 23,000ft2
It is, and meanwhile Galleria is opening a new flagship location on Steeles W, not that far away, imminently.
