salsa
Senior Member
Yep, lots of incompetence and profiteering. Can't argue against that.
Which is what I'm worried will happen with that Yonge & Bloor supertall proposal by Sam Mizrahi.
Toronto Emerald Park Condos | 128.92m | 40s | Bazis | Rosario Varacalli
- Thread starter AlbertC
- Start date
Yep, lots of incompetence and profiteering. Can't argue against that.
Which is what I'm worried will happen with that Yonge & Bloor supertall proposal by Sam Mizrahi.
sunnyraytoronto
Senior Member
It's interesting that these types of relatively new developers like Bazis specifically targets high density residential developments at subway interchanges or very close to them,.....
- CrystalBlu (southwest of Yonge-Bloor)
-EmeraldPark (southwest Yonge-Sheppard with direct subway connection)
-Exhibit (northwest of Bloor & Avenue Road near St.George subway interchange)
- E-condo (northeast corner of Yonge-Eglinton with direct subway/LRT connection)
- 1 Yorkville (northwest Yonge-Bloor)
- CrystalBlu (southwest of Yonge-Bloor)
-EmeraldPark (southwest Yonge-Sheppard with direct subway connection)
-Exhibit (northwest of Bloor & Avenue Road near St.George subway interchange)
- E-condo (northeast corner of Yonge-Eglinton with direct subway/LRT connection)
- 1 Yorkville (northwest Yonge-Bloor)
Bill123
Active Member
When I went today there were tables and chairs in the food courts. Forgot to take picture.
sunnyraytoronto
Senior Member
I didn't forget,.... taken on Halloween day,.... looking south on Bogert Ave in on Food Court area at west end of first floor retail level,... I would like to think, eventually they'll pack in more tables and chairs,....
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![IMG_1200[1].JPG](http://cdn.skyrisecities.com/forum/data/attachments/50/50071-4cfe2bc8c080bee66dec6d89ffa5841e.jpg)
Bill123
Active Member
Nice.
I don't know why they don't clean the floor first before moving all that in. Any idea what those vents with the construction cones on top of them are? Potential hazard for heels!
sunnyraytoronto
Senior Member
Those infloor grates/vents will likely host some type of indoor greenery,.... photo shows 6 infloor grates/vents likely to host smaller skinny trees or smaller planters full of plants.
Original floor plan for first floor retail had only 3 large planter/tree each with 4 tables plus 4 other tables for 16 tables in total. (Only 14 tables there now,.... it never surprise me how this developer cut corners)
Very first rendering of food court in high ceiling atrium area (seems more like a second floor) had these infloor grates/vents hosting indoor trees as per page 5 or 14 of thegalleriaatemeraldpark.com/pdf/brochure.pdf
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Bill123
Active Member
We are not only paying property tax. We are also paying for the maintenance, management, insurance, hst and interest on the price minus deposit. Total is about 4x property tax and higher if you bought on a mortgage. Real estate development business can be like this when the builder takes on too much debt and needs to somehow in the end profit. They can't just raise the sales price so they instead use cheaper materials and charge us 2.8% interest all because "not everyone has gotten the keys yet". Well it's been 3 months and still "not everyone has gotten their keys yet". How is that possible?
I am glad at least we got our units compared to that korean project up the road which just took everyones deposits and fled. I know people who were caught up in that scam.
Kaelyn
New Member
Anybody know when the 3rd floor commercial offices will be open to the public?
Sally Chan
New Member
The 3rd floor commercial area should be open sometime in the new year. There have been talks of late Jan.
Kaelyn
New Member
Sally, who did you hear this from that it might be opened for the new yr?
I have been trying to get an official grand opening date from them and still waiting to hear back.
I have been trying to get an official grand opening date from them and still waiting to hear back.
Scudder
New Member
It now appears Adonis is backing away from this location. They do not like the location of the store and have concerns with the construction.
Stay tuned but Metro is now reviewing. Possible they could introduce their new format ( see the store in Liberty Village ) there or pay the fee and walk.
Should know soon.
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sunnyraytoronto
Senior Member
Huh? Adonis had issues with the construction? Was it construction build quality (I'm hearing a lot of this from condo folks but not from retail/office yet - haven't opened!) or just construction design? I mean, Adonis located their Scarborough store in a former Bricks big box store,... so it's not like Adonis is too fussy.
Can't really say I'm surprised Adonis would be bailing as well,..... let's see, Loblaw's T&T bailed, Metro bailed,... err, tried to tag out to Adonis, Adonis bailed,.... looks like 3 strikes already,... but Metro wants one more final swing,... to make it official.
I'm assuming the delivery date was supposed to be November 2015?,... I'm only picking November because most of the original delivery dates seem to be for this month,...
If the developer could still deliver by the delivery date,.... and Metro is thus stuck with the contract,.... Metro would be wise to pay the penalty now and walk away,.... it's either pay one time now or constantly sink more money into a bottomless money eating pit.
Metro already has 3 Metro stores within about 2km of this EmeraldPark site:
- Metro @ YorkMills & Bayview
- Metro @ Sheppard West & Bathurst
- Metro @ Doris & Church in Willowdale
The first two Metro does well because they're the only supermarket near those locations and they have large visible parking lots in front of store at intersection of main arterial roads. The Metro at Doris & Church is rarely busy because it's hidden off Yonge behind a cemetery and there's no visible surface parking lot (the former Dominion at that site did better since it had Yonge frontage with large surface parking lot).
If Metro opens at EmeraldPark, they'll really be eating business from their other Metro stores instead of the competition. The Metro/Dominion/Miracle/Steinberg/GrandUnion that used to be across Yonge Street at the present HullmarkCentre site was never busy after the Miracle strike in the 1990s. The local demographic doesn't contain enough of Harper so called "old stock Canadians" for mainstream supermarket like Metro to thrive in close competition with other mainstream supermarkets. Look at the WholeFoodsMarket at HullmarkCentre, the grocery store is usually dead - not enough customers (thus, Metro coming in and dividing not enough customers in 2 is still not enough customers!),... but the WholeFoodsMarket cafe in front is quite busy, so now they're planning to expand the cafe! Plus, Longo's at 3rd floor SheppardCentre should be opened by early 2018 when that mall's renovation are done.
The only mainstream supermarket that seems to do well in North York Centre is the Loblaws at EmpressWalk. Why? It's a crappy location in the basement without any street level presence and no visible surface parking lot,.... so why does that EmpressWalk Loblaw always seem busy??? They've adapted somewhat to the local demographics by having Chinese vegetables and T&T items available. But it's mostly because,.... In the entire TTC subway system, that North York Centre subway station is the busiest subway station without a direct bus or streetcar line terminal; basically all the TTC customers are locals or area office workers and they walk to that station,.... and the busiest entrance to that North York Centre subway station is the underground entrance at EmpressWalk (BTW, what kind of sadistic idiot puts a building support column in front of those doorways!),... and they all walk right by the Loblaw entrance on their way to the subway and back home,...... and there's a large number of high density condo towers on that side of Yonge Street.
The problem with the EmeraldPark supermarket location is that:
- there's not a community of high density condo towers that will be using the EmeraldPark subway entrance,... it's mainly low density houses in the southwest quadrant of Yonge & Sheppard and the condos of EmeraldPark itself,.... all the high density condos are on the other side of Yonge Street serviced by the Annedale and Proctor&Gamble TTC entrances,...
- supermarket is not at streetlevel,... it's on second level
- supermarket does not have Yonge frontage, it's hidden in back - LCBO has entire 2nd floor Yonge frontage
- sight line of 2nd floor Metro can be blocked off with future developments - with Lansing United Church community centre construction to west, possible Menkes 50 storey condo to north (???), and to south row of homes on south side of Poyntz being in North York Secondary Plan which can probably allow low rise 4-5 storey
- there's no grand entrance on Yonge Street,... little entrances at the corners of EmeraldPark and large entrance at middle of Poyntz well off Yonge - basically in middle of Yonge and Beecroft where escalator to supermarket is making it difficult to get to supermarket - it's designed to draw more people into the 1st level retail mall to generate "false" retail traffic
- no visible surface parking lot - it's underground parking in P1 & P2 level (as I recall) but who pays (customer or store with purchase minimum)?
The problem for Adonis (and other ethnic supermarkets) would be that they draw their customers from a much larger geographical area VS a mainstream supermarket. Adonis only has 2 other stores in GTA (Eglinton & Warden in Scarborough and Mississauga),.... so an EmeraldPark Adonis would cover the geographical area of everything from DVP-404 to 427/HumberRiver from Lake Ontario to as far north as wherever the boonies ends,... with that kind of distance, their customers won't be coming every single day on public transit, they'll come once a week or so buying large quantities of items and will need a car! Parking situation is terribily confusing,... hidden underground parking off Bogert (nowhere near the entrance to the retail area) where condo residents and retail customers use the same parking entrances surrounded by truck loading dock entrances,.... ethnic stores like Adonis could locate at much cheaper location and draw in customers,...
Sure there's a large demographic of Persian locally (Korean and Persians are top 2 demographics in Willowdale Ward 23, then Chinese) but most tends to reside north of Finch. The Persian-MiddleEastern businesses on Yonge in North York are well north of Finch, north of Cummer/Dewry close to Steeles. I live in a house close to EmeraldPark and when I mention to my neighbours Adonis is coming, they're like "What's Adonis???",... including my Persian neighbours!
Did Metro ever consider handing off the EmeraldPark location to their Food Basics division,.... their logo is green in colour anyways,... so it'll match the EmeraldPark dollarama green colour,....
Anyways, for the most important question,... the LCBO is still coming, right? ;p As I understand it, Metro got the entire second floor and the LCBO was to be operated by Metro,...
Look around on the Yonge subway in North York or even the Sheppard Stubway,... what do you see? Huge demographic of Asian,... especially Chinese and Koreans,... more and more "newer stock" mainland Chinese,... that's why an ethnic Chinese or Korean supermarket could do well at EmeraldPark,.... if they can draw in not only the local ethnic demographic but those off the subway cars especially since Sheppard-Yonge is an interchange subways station and many of them would be getting off and on subway cars anyways,.... these demographics are the types that buy small easy to carry amounts of fresh groceries every other day or so,... VS "older stock Canadians" that tends to buy large quantities of grocery once a week and would need their car/SUV for grocery shopping,.... Could a Loblaw's T&T come back? T&T still didn't get another location nearby and we know they're interested in locating somewhere in North York Centre,... but probably not at EmeraldPark - after they see the construction build quality!,.... there's also maybe a T&T copycat clone like Spring,...
Wow,.... all this drama with the EmeraldPark anchor tenant supermarket and now all the first floor retailers/investors are basically stuck on hold and holding the bag until it's all resolved,..... all because this developer overpromised, under-delivered and couldn't deliver on time,..... if EmeraldPark isn't the poster child for why you shouldn't buy preconstruction (condo, retail and office) from an unproven developer, I don't know what is,........
Funny thing is as EmeraldPark and HullmarkCentre started construction at about the same time,.... we saw the construction hoardings of HullmarkCentre advertise the new RoyalBank, Rexall and WholeFoodsMarket coming in (and they all came in along with Guu),...... but the construction hoardings of EmeraldPark never advertised any new stores - only office space still available,....
If Metro bails, and the developer of EmeraldPark continues to mess up,.... we'll end up with another ghost mall in North York Centre,.... one so deserted that it'll makes the lower concourse level at North York City Centre look like UnionStation,.....
Oh, and this is the same developer that was to originally develop at one of Toronto's best prime location,.... 1 Bloor Street East,.... sure glad it's now another developer building that important part of Toronto.
Scudder, Thanks for keeping us up to date.
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Kaelyn
New Member
So does that mean the supermarket on the 2nd floor needs to open first, then the 1st floor retail stores and then finally the 3rd floor offices?
sunnyraytoronto
Senior Member
Not neccessarily.
It's just that the supermarket is the anchor tenant and will draw in the most customer to the retail areas,.... and since basically all of the first floor Pacific Mall like retail spaces were brought by Chinese when Loblaw's T&T was supposed to be the anchor tenant supermarket on 2nd floor,.... there will be a huge mismatch where a non-Chinese supermarket will not match with a little Chinatown that would have gone in on first floor retail level,...
Since most of the first floor Pacific Mall type retails were brought by Chinese investors looking to rent out the stores (likely 80%),.... VS Chinese mom&pop business looking to open up their own stores (likely 20%),..... (notice all the for lease/rent signage on 1st floor retail level now),..... those retail space investors are left holding the bag since no one will rent that space until they know who the anchor tenant will be and what kind of customers that anchor tenant will draw to the mall,.....
If Metro stays then they should open by next summer and first floor retail starts filling up by then,.... otherwise, who knows,.... the supermarket is a large retail space at an expensive price so the number of potential stores that could open there isn't very large,.... and the longer it takes to resolve the tougher it'll be because the newly renovated SheppardCentre mall should be finished in about 2 years time,.... and if you're a mainstream business, you'd rather be in that mall since it's RioCan (they don't mess up like you know who!) and there's much more foot traffic through that SheppardCentre mall they have more high density development close by and since they have multiple anchor/big tenant like Longo's, Winner's, ShoppersDrugMart and TD/CIBC/BMO banks branches,....
The best chance for EmeraldPark retail space to start and survive is to go ethnic,.... either Chinese as originally set (Loblaw's T&T and little Chinatown 1st floor retail level) or Korean (but already lots of established Korean stores in area),.... have to draw in local ethnic demographic and those already using the Sheppard-Yonge subway interchange station to stop by and do their routine grocery shopping on their way home,.....
The 3rd floor office is independent of retail space,.... so they should open early in new years,..... there's like 60 small condo offices,.... and the market for these condo offices sucks,... so I would only expect 12 (20%) of these offices to be open in the next year or so,.... if you're wondering why so low, look across the street at HullmarkCentre condo offices,... heck, just stroll through their electronic directory outside the doors,.... I could count the number of offices there on my hands! And they have 12 floors of condo offices in NorthTower and 3 floors of condo offices in podium,....
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Scudder
New Member
Talk is the location like you said not being off Yonge St and word is Whole Foods is having some challenges. The Metro up the street on Church is now starting a full Reno to the Company's new format and that's a major investment so maybe also playing a part.
Stay tuned for now.
Stay tuned for now.