innsertnamehere said:
Just from a physical space perspective it will be tough. IIRC the Market on James is around 5,000sf - so over twice the size of this retail space.

It may end up being a (very) small market, but I think it would be disingenuous to call it a "grocery store". The space is closer in size to a convenience store and about 1/10th the size of a standard grocery store like a No Frills or Food Basics.

These things evolve over time too. At this point in the process for the Augusta Block, the plans were labelling the Market On James space as a medical office space.
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I'm currently in Portugal, and it's not uncommon to have full-our groceries with 80% of your essentials in a space smaller than 2500sq ft. We're just used to big box stores in Canada.

If Core Urban can find someone that wants to do a moderately full service grocer in this space, there's no reason it can't exist. There are two spanish grocers on James currently and an African grocer between which have almost 50% of what one would need on a daily. This space could easily house a small grocer with some produce, OTC medication, spices, condiments, frozen food and some boxed items, and hopefully beer and wine and I'd be a happy camper.
 
Chris R. said:
I'm currently in Portugal, and it's not uncommon to have full-our groceries with 80% of your essentials in a space smaller than 2500sq ft. We're just used to big box stores in Canada.

If Core Urban can find someone that wants to do a moderately full service grocer in this space, there's no reason it can't exist. There are two spanish grocers on James currently and an African grocer between which have almost 50% of what one would need on a daily. This space could easily house a small grocer with some produce, OTC medication, spices, condiments, frozen food and some boxed items, and hopefully beer and wine and I'd be a happy camper.
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In the city centres ya. Outside in the suburbs, you find the exact same big box stores we have in North America. In fact, they have grocery stores that dwarf Loblaws and Fortinos.
 
TheHonestMaple said:
In the city centres ya. Outside in the suburbs, you find the exact same big box stores we have in North America. In fact, they have grocery stores that dwarf Loblaws and Fortinos.
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Good thing the development in question is in a city centre.
 
innsertnamehere said:
And... the largest retail space is 2,200sf. No grocery store is going here. If anything goes here selling food, it'll be more of a convenience store.

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This floor plan is weird - why didn't they put the entrance to the stairs on the side so they didn't have to take that giant rounded chunk out of the commercial area? I am guessing they reused the curve for the parking garage underneath and tried to make it look "stylish" that way or something..

I was wondering why that part was angled at the top then I remembered that part is the existing building they have "absorbed".
 
Chris R. said:
My point wasn't that Europeans don't have big box stores, it's that we don't have European small grocers.
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We do in big cities where the market demands it, like in Toronto and Montreal. Hamilton just doesn't quite have the downtown population for it yet.
 
TheHonestMaple said:
We do in big cities where the market demands it, like in Toronto and Montreal. Hamilton just doesn't quite have the downtown population for it yet.
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This town has less than 100,000 people in it and it's got like 8 of them in addition to the big box stores.

My point is just that it's possible if you find the right company.
 
Chris R. said:
This town has less than 100,000 people in it and it's got like 8 of them in addition to the big box stores.

My point is just that it's possible if you find the right company.
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and most of those 100,000 people probably live within a few km of the city centre. Our cities aren't set up the same.
 
OK., so.... what's clear is that small grocers can exist, it just requires a high local density. Hamilton is on the way, so then what? For the kind of store we're discussing, we don't require as many local customers as a conventional grocer- including those that pop up in downtown Toronto. Those are particularly big, yet far and few between- a market response to not having a clear/good model for urban grocers to emerge at scale, carried instead by a white hot RE market.

Nevertheless, we do not have that luxury of brute-forcing undesirably big grocery stores. While we shouldn't discount Nations' presence, we also shouldn't ask for more like it. A new niche needs to be carved. That's the challenge; we need to find both developers and commercial tenants who are willing to design, build and operate smaller grocery stores.

In regards to this project, if CoreUrban wants it to happen, they'll find a way (if it's possible). But there are many, many layers of regulations that complicate matters. I would not fault them if they can't do it- but I would like those constraints to be highlighted and addressed. If It's bylaw(s), then the City can move the needle. If it's building code... not so much.

On a certain level, it's no single private developers' responsibility to do/try any of this, especially one of Core Urban's size. But we can help them out-I encourage everyone to ask these questions of our officials whenever the opportunity arises.
 
I'd love to see a "The Market by Longo's" or a "Sobeys Urban Fresh" in the ground floor of this one. I think with Design District, King William Urban Rentals and 75 James all planned to be complete (or already complete) in the next year or two, there will definitely be the population and income base to support something like that. Hamilton is definitely getting close to the density required for small downtown grocery stores.

@Chris R. you have a personal relationship with Core Urban's Steve Kulakowsky. Why don't you reach out to him and try to get the ball rolling with that? I'm sure he'd be open to the idea. The Market on James is nice, but it's just not quite big enough for me to consider it a real grocery store. It's more like a large convenience store.

If they moved the lobby to the north, and combined the two commercial spaces, they could get more like 5000 sqft. The Sobeys Urban Fresh on Roncesvalles in Toronto is similar in size to that. No reason it wouldn't work here.
 
Again, those urban format grocery stores typically have spaces closer to 10,000sf.

2,200sf is small even by European grocery standards. There could definitely be a food market here of some kind, but it is much closer in size to a convenience store and will struggle to sell much more than that. Picture the amount of food sold at the average Shoppers Drug Mart today - that kind of size.
 
innsertnamehere said:
Again, those urban format grocery stores typically have spaces closer to 10,000sf.

2,200sf is small even by European grocery standards. There could definitely be a food market here of some kind, but it is much closer in size to a convenience store and will struggle to sell much more than that. Picture the amount of food sold at the average Shoppers Drug Mart today - that kind of size.
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Have you been to Sobeys Urban Fresh High park?
 
innsertnamehere said:
Again, those urban format grocery stores typically have spaces closer to 10,000sf.

2,200sf is small even by European grocery standards. There could definitely be a food market here of some kind, but it is much closer in size to a convenience store and will struggle to sell much more than that. Picture the amount of food sold at the average Shoppers Drug Mart today - that kind of size.
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I used to live off of Roncesvalles and there's a Sobeys there that is definitely not 10,000 sf. 5,000 maybe at the most. Plus lots of other small independent grocers. I get it, convenience stores are pretty typical in Hamilton so would generally be the default but I think 2200 sf could still offer a decent space. I dont think the Denningers on Queenston in Stoney Creek is much bigger than 2200 sf tbh.
 
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