Not a bad idea. I'm in the area, and last week I was unable to find karashi and kombu for dashi anywhere and had to order HonDashi and powdered mustard online from Haisue. Then the grocery store at Manulife somehow replaced the white miso it usually carries with doenjang - the packages are similar.
It appears that may be happening as well, which strikes me (ha - see what I did there?) as a very aggressive expansion.
This should be very successful here, there are more young people then you think around the area. I look at it from the other way around, I think they'll do a lot better here than they would at Panda's basement. I dont see heavy pedestrian traffic there (on Edward St) at any point during the day/night and it would be tougher to draw a crowd there.
Other than The Ballroom going into the former McEwan's spot downstairs, I haven't heard a peep. There are spots on the East of the Bloor side that have been vacant the entire time the building's been up.
It's so bizzare that they'd keep those spots vacant instead of just lowering the rent. It doesn't even make financial sense to hold out for higher rent since the original leases would have expired by now. If they had leased it for even $1, that's $1 more than they would've made leaving it empty (yes I know that's a bit superfluous to say, but still......).
Welcome to the real estate greed-fest that is Toronto.
same situation with several new condo developments on Yonge - storefronts empty for years. the city needs to charge real estate companies an empty storefront tax similar to the vacant home tax.
Must be some kind of tax write-off. They wouldn't have kept it vacant for so long otherwise. Revenue Canada should close this loophole and the city should impose a punitive vacant commercial property tax.
My understanding is that if they lower the rent, the valuation of the property goes down, so they’d rather just maintain the value of their asset than rent it out.
Aura is different - those units were sold as strata titles, not leased by the commercial landlord. Besides, the empty storefronts there are not visible from street level. I do think there should be a penalty if the storefronts are street-facing - they're unsightly and kill street life. No sympathy for 1 Bloor E landlord - after all, their units are located at a prime location (again, unlike Aura's basement), a lot of businesses would love to be at Yonge & Bloor if the rent/ lease makes commercial sense. While the loss of some tenants (Starbucks, Nordstrom) was beyond the landlord's control, there's no excuse for letting the Bloor St units remain vacant for the past 7 years or so (except for ex Tokyo Smoke). Like I said, those units would have been snapped up if the rent was reasonable.