W. K. Lis
Superstar
Hmm. Retail space available for private liquor stores or indie craft beer stores?
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- Thread starter samsonyuen
- Start date
Ex-Montreal Girl
Active Member
I don't know where you folks went but I can say that the Zeller's at East York Town Centre was terrific. It wasn't beautiful and, like all these big box stores, service totally sucked, but when I went in there to buy pajamas for my grandkids or underwear for my husband or storage bins for the basement (nice colourful and sturdy ones!) or warm dogwalking gloves for myself, I always found what I wanted. Name brands at good prices.
I don't want an experience. I want to not waste my time.
I went to the Target that replaced Zellers at the EYTC half a dozen times looking for the stuff for the kids and us and the walls/shelves were always bare. I did manage to buy a nice door mat once, and some Method cleaning supplies on sale.
But that was it.
A real experience, yup yup.
[I also miss the downtown Sears where we bought 6 top quality appliances when we bought the condo. The salesman really knew his stuff and was able to explain the features on each and every fridge and make recommendations on our needs. He ran circles around the folks at other stores (come on down Home Depot) who acted as if they were doing us a favour. I am sure if we had gone to places like Caplan's we would have encountered informed and motivated salespeople but that would be like trekking to "the sticks" for downtowners like us.]
Benito
Senior Member
Although their locations weren't very convenient for me, I will miss Target here. The times I did go their, I was usually able to find what I was looking for. It wasn't as great as the US stores, but it wasn't bad and it was a much better experience than Walmart which I cannot stand.
Skeezix
Senior Member
I always liked Zellers. The merchandise was often stuffed on the shelf, and the stores often hadn't been renovated for ages, but they had what you went in for, always for a good price. Couldn't say that about Target.
From today's New York Times:
"One widely noted measure of Target’s failure was a sustained nostalgia among many Canadians for the closed Zellers chain. While Zellers stores were disorganized, understaffed and often run-down, many Canadian shoppers have said that they offered better value and had more products in stock than Target."
From today's New York Times:
"One widely noted measure of Target’s failure was a sustained nostalgia among many Canadians for the closed Zellers chain. While Zellers stores were disorganized, understaffed and often run-down, many Canadian shoppers have said that they offered better value and had more products in stock than Target."
gabe
Senior Member
Target didn't listen to the consumer. That was there downfall. Everyone was expecting Target to look like the American stores. But they screwed us with less selection, empty shelves, and way higher prices.
Johnny Au
Senior Member
There was a liquor store in Alberta called Target Liquor: "Canadian Trade-Mark Data: Application No. 1021150 / Registration No. TMA375459"
Riverdale Rink Rat
Senior Member
The Zellers at Gerrard Square was tons more fun than the Wal-Mart that replaced it. I'd say it had better clothes selection than Wal-Mart, and tons of things haphazardly strewn around that were actually decent finds. The Wal-Mart is determinedly down market, cheap trash. The Target on Danforth was pretty weird. I don't think I bought much except the odd T-shirt or jeans there, and the tons of food/frozen food shelves used up space without anyone ever going near them (except maybe for Hallowe'en candy).
LNahid2000
Senior Member
Walmart Gerrard Square is actually my favourite Walmart in Toronto! No one seems to know about it so it's always empty. It's the one Walmart in Toronto you can go to without having to deal with crowds.
Skeezix
Senior Member
Fair enough. I used to love Eaton's for the same reason.
Lenser
Senior Member
I try to avoid Gerrard Square. Only go to the Home Depot the odd time and then of course there's Tropical Joe's for the roti. Always found Zellers depressing and Walmart is even more hideous.
Target's failed big time but it's all on them. They surged in without taking the time to understand the Canadian market. It's unfortunate but they did it to themselves, so maybe we're better off without them. The only store I set foot in was the Danforth and Vic Park location. It looked and felt like a particularly disheveled Walmart, only the dominant colour was red rather than blue.
Target's failed big time but it's all on them. They surged in without taking the time to understand the Canadian market. It's unfortunate but they did it to themselves, so maybe we're better off without them. The only store I set foot in was the Danforth and Vic Park location. It looked and felt like a particularly disheveled Walmart, only the dominant colour was red rather than blue.
Skeezix
Senior Member
Gerrard Square is badly designed, and the parking is atrocious.
Lenser
Senior Member
The area deserves better than Gerrard Square. They ought to tear it down and start afresh. I wonder what's up with the condo project that's supposed to be going in on Pape above Gerrard, just beneath the tracks? That ought to be a welcome addition.
So the Globe is saying Target's expected to write off seven billion dollars in this debacle. Oops.
So the Globe is saying Target's expected to write off seven billion dollars in this debacle. Oops.
Tuscani01
Senior Member
So Canadian Tire Real Estate has an emergency 2 day meeting to discuss the Target withdrawal. It's mandatory for all of the real estate divisions across Canada, so it sounds like they are preparing to kick into expansion mode.
Frankie1984
Active Member
This piece posted on Gawker last year offered a lot of insight of the incompetence involved from all parties of Target.
http://gawker.com/why-was-target-canada-such-a-disaster-1579554288
http://gawker.com/why-was-target-canada-such-a-disaster-1579554288
W. K. Lis
Superstar
Target pullout leaves condo project in the lurch
Menkes’ Harbour Plaza project was meant to house first downtown Target
From this link:
Menkes’ Harbour Plaza project was meant to house first downtown Target
From this link:
Condo builder Menkes Developments was banking on Target to be the anchor tenant of its new Harbour Plaza development in the South Core. Target was to open the downtown store in October, 2016 filling 145,000 square feet of the 200,000 square foot retail podium of the project.
By: Susan Pigg Business Reporter, Published on Thu Jan 15 2015
Target’s pullout from Canada is going to leave shopping centre landlords with some challenging space to fill — tops among them is condo builder Menkes Developments which was banking on the U.S. retailer to be the anchor tenant of its new Harbour Plaza development in the South Core.
Its first downtown store was slated to open in October of 2016 as part of the two million square foot office, retail and condo complex on southerly York St.
The pullout leaves Menkes, and its partner in part of the project, the Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan (HOOPP), in an unusual bind in that Target would have filled 145,000 square feet of the 200,000 square foot retail podium of the project and acted as a major draw for other retailers.
Menkes said Thursday that it had yet to hear from Target officials directly about their intentions for the Harbour Plaza site.
“ … We remain very confident in this landmark mixed-use office, retail and residential location in the heart of Toronto’s South Core, and believe that it will be fully leased by world-class retail partners upon the completion of construction in two years,†said company president Peter Menkes in a statement.
It’s unlikely that any other retailer would snap up all 133 Target stores slated for shutdown, especially because many were in less than ideal locations, retail experts say.
But the suddenly availability of prime sites like Harbour Plaza and its recently built new store in the west-end Stockyards may open the door for Walmart or Costco to make a move into the burgeoning downtown market, said Ross Moore, director of research for commercial brokerage CBRE.
“At the end of the day it will all come down to how good is the space.â€
The drastic decision to shut down all 133 stores across Canada — many of them anchor stores and major shopping attractions in secondary, suburban malls — is likely to further shake consumer confidence in the wake of slumping oil prices, said retail expert John Crombie, a former retail real estate broker who is now senior vice president of Triovest, a commercial real estate investment and management company.
“It’s going to have a further dampening effect,†said Crombie in a telephone interview. “This is going to take more jobs and consumer spending out of the Canadian economy. That’s a lot of square footage suddenly coming to the market.â€
The shutdown will inevitably drive up mall vacancy rates and drive down rents and force some mall owners to subdivide the space, where possible.
Some older malls will likely be driven out of business altogether because secondary tenants are bound to lose traffic without Target as a neighbour, said Alan Middleton, a marketing professor at York University’s Schulich School of Business.
“One of the many things Target did wrong was bad locations,†added Middleton, which will make many of the big-box stores tough to lease.
As Crombie puts it: “Just because you put on your uncle’s old, worn-out shoes doesn’t mean they’re going to be the best fit for you. I think that was part and parcel of the problems Target had — they ending up taking the lesser locations from a real estate standpoint.â€
The South Core location was meant to be a sort of new start — a major, urban location in sparkling new space close to all those downtown professionals and condo-dwelling millennials who, notes Middleton, are value conscious because just living in the city eats up so much of their income.
Other major retailers such as Walmart and Canadian Tire that might be a fit for some of Target’s space — its stores ranged from 80,000 to more than 140,000 square feet — aren’t really in major expansion mode right now.
Another challenge is that Canada is no longer the sought-after darling for U.S. realtors that it has been in the last five years now that the U.S. economy is in recovery mode.
Few of the stores are believed to be suited to dividing into smaller shops.
Target also has some 4.8 million square feet of distribution space across Canada, including 1.3 million square foot facilities it built in Milton, another just north of Calgary and a third in Cornwall. It also leases another 900,000 square feet of space elsewhere.
The Milton facility is likely to be snapped up quickly because the industrial sector is growing in the region right now in the wake of the weak dollar, slumping oil prices and the strengthening U.S. economy, said Stuart Barron, national director of research for commercial brokerage Cushman & Wakefield Ltd.
Others, because they are in much smaller industrial markets, will have a harder time finding new tenants: “This will return some significant additional space to market,†said Barron.
“People will be asking themselves, will this deter other foreign retailers from setting up shop in Canada,†says CBRE’s Moore. “Retailers are a pretty savvy bunch and will see this as a Target-specific story, nt a Canadian story.
“They realize that retail is all about logistics and that you’ve got to get it right.â€