(11-12-2021, 11:10 PM)tomh009 Wrote: Having a design for a grocery store is nice, but still need to find a tenant who wants to open a store in DTK. And now, with Marche Leo's open already, there is some competition already. Maybe they will have a store open there, or maybe not.

(11-12-2021, 11:15 PM)CP42 Wrote:

(11-12-2021, 11:10 PM)tomh009 Wrote: Having a design for a grocery store is nice, but still need to find a tenant who wants to open a store in DTK. And now, with Marche Leo's open already, there is some competition already. Maybe they will have a store open there, or maybe not.

A store of that size would be occupied by a Sobeys or a Loblaws. I don’t think a Marche Leo’s will be getting in the way of that if they want to enter the market, and given the population growth in the core in the coming years, seems like not so bad of an opportunity.

(11-13-2021, 10:23 AM)tomh009 Wrote: A few years back I had a discussion with a DTK property owner who was trying to get a grocery store tenant, and he told me that at the time the big chains were telling him that DTK needed something like 10,000 more residents in order to warrant a downtown store. DTK has grown since and is definitely still growing. But is it enough? That's a question only the store planners can answer. Until now, nobody has bit, and it hasn't been a question of available space, either.

So, I'm not saying it won't happen, but having a nice retail space for a grocery store doesn't guarantee a grocery store tenant.

(11-13-2021, 10:24 AM)ac3r Wrote: Marche Leo's helps, but it's not a general grocery store for you'd go to day to day (unless you have deep pockets). While Zehrs and Sobeys are still pricey, they're the sort of store most people go to for daily essentials or niche products.

(11-13-2021, 03:30 PM)taylortbb Wrote:

(11-13-2021, 10:23 AM)tomh009 Wrote: A few years back I had a discussion with a DTK property owner who was trying to get a grocery store tenant, and he told me that at the time the big chains were telling him that DTK needed something like 10,000 more residents in order to warrant a downtown store. DTK has grown since and is definitely still growing. But is it enough? That's a question only the store planners can answer. Until now, nobody has bit, and it hasn't been a question of available space, either.

So, I'm not saying it won't happen, but having a nice retail space for a grocery store doesn't guarantee a grocery store tenant.

The proposed grocery store is part of the last phase, so it's a pretty long ways out. A building like that is probably 4 years from start of construction to full occupancy, and they haven't even started selling earlier phases. By the time it's open I have little doubt that DTK will have added 10k residents.

(11-13-2021, 03:30 PM)taylortbb Wrote: I also think they have to have a tenant already interested. It's one thing to try and attract a grocery store tenant to a generic retail space, but this space is purpose designed to be a grocery store. I don't think they'd build loading docks, or design the parking garage around a grocery store, purely speculatively. They'd just make it another floor of office, rather than risking a whole floor of space on a very specific speculative tenant.