Well,... your favourite Willowdale Development guy got news,... well, ok,... gossip! I better notify
@Northern Light so he doesn't bitc-,.. err, I mean complain,...
Mind you, I suspect that decision was made prior to wholefoods closing :) - not clear to me if that happened more recently they would have considered taking the space and leaving Loblaws. It'll be interesting to debate what could take the wholefoods space - my prediction - it'll stay vacant for...
urbantoronto.ca
No Frills will be taking over the former 45,000sqft WholeFoodsMarket retail space at TridelHullmark Centre,... well, at least some of the space, I don't know the size of the incoming NoFrills.
In mid-70's Yonge Sheppard area had Loblaws on Yonge north of Sheppard, Miracle southeast corner of Yonge & Sheppard and then when SheppardCentre opened a Dominion (likely where Winners is now) that only lasted about 1 year!
By 1990s, only Miracle/Metro remains,... then with 2010-2014 redevelopment into Tridel HullmarkCentre Whole Foods Market opened September 2014 - with area monopoly, look busy in front cafe, but supermarket was not busy, couldn't jive the numbers,... always big money loser - I forecasted 2019/2024 closing,...
Especially since it wasn't his fault, except insofar that Council as a whole made bad decisions.
urbantoronto.ca
But Rich Daddy Amazon brought WholeFoodsMarket in 2017,... who saw that coming????
With renovated YongeSheppardCentre, 40,000sqft Longos opened on 2nd floor in July 2019,..... and after many supermarkets bailing at 2nd floor EmeraldPark (green building) 30,000sqft Food Basics opened October 2021. Yonge & Sheppard was only intersection in Toronto with 3 supermarkets within 100m of intersection.
With WholeFoodsMarket closing in August 2025,.... many hoped for FarmBoy as replacement - not likely since FarmBoy and Longos are both owned by Empire. Best chance for FarmBoy would be if Longos bomb and FarmBoy replace Longos at YongeSheppardCentre.
With 75,000-80,000sqft Loblaws at EmpressWalk closing in October 2025,... to be replaced with Ontario's largest 66,000sqft T&T and hopefully my dream bubble tea shop HeyTea Lab!!! (joking!)
Anyways,.... WholeFoodsMarket 45,000sqft retail space at Tridel HullmarkCentre will be taken over by a Loblaws' NO Frills store,... likely opening end of year? And right now,..
- I don't know if NoFrills will take up the entire 45,000sqft - that's insane! Ground floor retail space cost double that of 2nd floor & basement,... I highly doubt NoFrills will be dumb enough to build 45,000sqft store here - Yonge St frontage ground floor rent will be nuts!!! As WholeFoodsMarket shown it's NOT competitive!
- so even at 30,000sqft a ground floor NoFrills would be paying double the rent vs the 2nd floor 30,000sqft FoodBasics!
- hard to even imagine 30,000sqft,... some NoFrills downtown are around 10,000-15,000sqft compact - which is crazy small.
I can't jive the numbers right now,.. but man,... and those folks at Yonge & Finch - still stuck in Food Desert until large H-Mart opens at M2M - which is taking forever!!!
Remember when Dollarama opened at EmpressWalk and then at the newly renovated Yonge&Sheppard Centre,... that was kind of a sign the area,... err,... the area's price point is decreasing,... then came FoodBasics,... and now NoFrills!
