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The brass tax of it is that people will have to pay to park downtown London. People from outside the core are not going to come into the core to shop at a Metro, No Frills, Food Basic, Superstore, Fresh Co. etc. when they can already do that close to them, and at no addition cost.
From the owners point of view why spend extra money, and get less sq. footage just to "be in the core" when you can buy cheaper land near new subdivisions and be financially better off. New No Frills opened at Colonel Talbot & Southdale couple months ago for this exact reason.
There are already small stores that people can buy groceries in the core. This idea of a core grocery store comes from people who have to use public transit or biking/walking, and view it as an inconvenience having to lug all their groceries around. People have to eat, so grocers have no real incentive to open an additional store with higher costs to appease this crowd.
Besides there's already a Valu-Mart @ Richmond & Oxford, Superstore near the core on Oxford & Gammage. These are close enough for people to use.
If anything there should be talk of a grocery store on or near UWO campus! I remember having to wheel carts down Western Rd (back when it was a 2 lane piece of shit with no side walks) back from Maisonville or Cherryhill.
Mississauga City Centre got it's first grocery store a few years ago, when the population reached 20,000.
I'm not sure if the success of grocery stores in Port Arthur can be comparable to a place like Downtown London or Mississauga City Centre, where the land costs are probably very high compared relative to the surrounding neighbourhoods, or at least I assume so, in the case of downtown London.
The businesses in downtown London needs more customers for profit than they do in Port Arthur because the rent costs are higher. Land/space in Port Arthur doesn't need to be utilized as intensely. That why there are no high-rises in Port Arthur, while Downtown London has a bunch of high rises.
So I don't think Thunder Bay has the same pressures on downtown grocery stores and other downtown businesses as in London. The competition for space is just not as high in Port Arthur as it is in Downtown London. The grocery stores in Port Arthur can serve the 25,000 people beyond walking distance because the parking space is cheap. Could a grocery store in downtown London afford to have that much parking space?
The grocery store in Mississauga City Centre has no parking, so it serves people within walking distance only, and I'm guessing that a downtown grocery store in London would be the same.
There is a Safeway in Downtown Kelowna and though it is much smaller then London it has suburban sprawl and high land prices. Actually much higher then London the same is true of Victoria.
I also think the quoting of Downtown population numbers from 2006 is ubsurdly out dated. If the store was to include parking the drawing area should reach into SOHO, east along Dundas, up Richmond at least to Pall Mall and the area bordered by Riverside, wharncliffe, and Blackfriars.
If anything there should be talk of a grocery store on or near UWO campus! I remember having to wheel carts down Western Rd (back when it was a 2 lane piece of shit with no side walks) back from Maisonville or Cherryhill.
Western now has a small grocery store, located on the lower level of the University Community Centre. I believe it opened this past September.
Fair enough, although I've seen bathrooms bigger than the UWO grocery store Little to choose from, at typical UWO extortionist prices ($5 footlongs at subway are $7 at UWO subway).
If one counts UWO's thing as a grocery store, than downtown already has several, whether it me Convent Garden Market or Shoppers Drug Mart.
Downtown Montreal has a wide variety of grocery stores, from full sized supermarkets (e.g., IGA at Alexis Nihon, Metro at Place Desjardins), to slightly smaller supermarkets (e.g., Provigo on Ste. Catherines Ouest; Metro in La Cite in the McGill Ghetto), to independent and small chain supermarkets (e.g., P & A supermarket, which opened up in the old Montreal Thistle Curling Club in the Concordia ghetto; Mourelatos [numerous outlets], etc. But then, there are tens of thousands of Montrealais that only use public transit and that live in the core.
__________________ There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know. -Donald Rumsfeld Didn't you notice on the plane when you started talking, eventually I started reading the vomit bag?
I know the new Shoppers Drug Mart will have a grocery section, but I don't know anything about Shoppers' grocery line. Is it like a small market? Is this a major score for the core?
It's definitely a step in the right direction. Anything that brings variety and competition downtown is a welcome addition, but this Shoppers won't fill the role of a real grocery store. The grocery section is mostly for dry goods with a few freezers for frozen items. I used to visit the Shoppers at Oxford/Adelaide a lot. I would mostly just buy things when they were on sale since the everyday prices were pretty high.
That being said, I'm still very happy this place's going up. The current store has a poor selection and crappy hours.
__________________ There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know. -Donald Rumsfeld Didn't you notice on the plane when you started talking, eventually I started reading the vomit bag?
Shoppers is ok for groceries, but only when they're on sale. A good grocery is what we're really missing downtown. Right now I have to go all the way to Wonderland/Commissioners or Huron/Adelaide to find one.
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Little to choose from, at typical UWO extortionist prices ($5 footlongs at subway are $7 at UWO subway).
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