Toronto Market Wharf | 110.33m | 33s | Context Development | a—A

Honestly, not missing much - considering Shoppers is such a rip off and I have to wonder just what proportion of their sales comes from prescription drugs, considering their push into lifestyle retailing.

AoD
 
Shoppers has EVERYTHING-- and they carry products (cosmetics/aesthetics especially) from lines that are only carried at places like department stores which price them higher and haggle and harass you to buy them. Plus, the Optimum card is a pretty good incentive. I don't think they are a rip-off. They aren't cheap, but it's a great business model and very efficient store to shop at. I just hope they don't oversaturate.
 
DSC said:
The retailer, which has more than 1,170 stores – almost half of them in Ontario – had plans for as many as 40 new outlets this year, although he didn’t say how many of them were slated for that province. We will try to do absolutely our minimum investment in Ontario"
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Good. I'm sick of seeing so many Shoppers Drug Mart stores everywhere.
 
Not sure why anyone would be sick of seeing so many Shoppers Drug Mart stores everywhere. Better not move to the US or you'll be seeing Walgreen's like there's no tomorrow.

As mentioned above, Shoppers has a great business model and are hardly a rip off. Their prices are rarely the lowest, but usually middle of the road, or great when on sale and the Optimum card is one of the few incentive cards I'll carry (always need things that are sold at drug stores and it's a good program). They are the best laid out drug stores in all of Canada and cover a lot of different areas without venturing too far from their core business.

More on topic, Shoppers wanted the land where Market Wharf is being built for quite sometime, but the city preferred it to be zoned for mixed use. I would be incredibly surprised if they walked away from this, especially since it is a fantastic opportunity. Location. Location. Location.
 
I think a lot of us are irked by the fact that they're one of those chains that have often been disrespectful of their surroundings, having no problem erecting 1 storey stores in urban areas where such developments are inappropriate.
 
Exactly.

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I'm blown away that anyone has positive things to say about Shoppers Drug Mart. On this forum no less!
 
Towered said:
I think a lot of us are irked by the fact that they're one of those chains that have often been disrespectful of their surroundings, having no problem erecting 1 storey stores in urban areas where such developments are inappropriate.
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But they're a phramacy, not property developers. They have an ethical obligation to dispense pills in the right quantities to the right people. But they're not in the business of promoting a given kind of built form. (Would you *want* them to be?) You can't blame them for doing what they do. If people want to see minimum densities in place, then that's between them and their municipality.
 
Sir Novelty Fashion said:
But they're a phramacy, not property developers. They have an ethical obligation to dispense pills in the right quantities to the right people. But they're not in the business of promoting a given kind of built form. (Would you *want* them to be?) You can't blame them for doing what they do. If people want to see minimum densities in place, then that's between them and their municipality.
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True, but their street-level stores have a ghastly 'sameness' to them which leads one to think that this is what they ask for. In most of their stores the windows are totally blocked with adverts, not illegal, not against codes but certainly not very 'neighbourhood-friendly" and definitely not giving 'eyes on the street".
 
Well, like Starbucks, there's a certain relativeness to it. In a neighbourhood like Danforth and Main or St. Clair and Old Weston Road, the introduction of a SDM or a Sbux is a godsend because now you can get drug store items or respectable coffee from a fairly dependable place. Downtown, where there's practically a Sbux every two blocks and a SDM every three, it starts to turn the urban landscape into something sterile and bland.
 
Parkdalian said:
I live in Parkdale (could you guess?), and they recently opened a SDM. I can't tell you how wonderful this is. That "ghastly sameness" is a godsend to an area that is pretty much a schizophrenic urban mess. We need some things to be dependably boring.
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Though said SDM is in a building that was already ghastly (some kinda 1980s rental/co-op something-or-another)
 
adma said:
Though said SDM is in a building that was already ghastly (some kinda 1980s rental/co-op something-or-another)
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I live in a small community east of Toronto, and ever since I was told I couldn't park in their half- empty parking lot ( at the edge of the downtown main street ), unless I was shopping there, I've not shopped at SDM, nor will I ever. I told the attendant to let the store manager that SDM had lost a customer. Small peanuts to SDM, I guess.
 
Sir Novelty Fashion said:
But they're a phramacy, not property developers. They have an ethical obligation to dispense pills in the right quantities to the right people. But they're not in the business of promoting a given kind of built form. (Would you *want* them to be?) You can't blame them for doing what they do. If people want to see minimum densities in place, then that's between them and their municipality.
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This is it in a nutshell.

To stay on topic, in the case of Market Wharf, a pharmacy (in this case a Shoppers Drug Mart) will be entwined into the fabric of the neighbourhood in a way that many of you would prefer them to be. So this is a good thing, right? ;)
 
Everybody knows that SDM's cash isn't in the prescription drugs, it's in the groceries and made-in-china junk they sell. There's a reason why they make you wait 30 minutes to fill a prescription that should take 5 minutes.
 
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