Toronto The Well | 174.03m | 46s | RioCan | Hariri Pontarini

Yea to be honest I'm a bit worried how all of the retail will do; It's is a LOT of retail, it's about the size of the retail at the Shops at Don Mills, or 3/4 of Farview Mall ; Yes there's 1 big office right on the site and many small ones nearby (think Wellington / Spadina) but still ...

With all that said, I'm wagering a lot of the retail will not be traditional shops per say -

According to the website there is 95,000 sq. ft. old-world inspired food market, whatever that is ? Add a bunch of restaurants and maybe a gym.

It will be very interesting to see.
 
DSC said:
I completely agree that the renderings look great but whether the 'shopping experience' will be any good surely depends on the stores that they have there. If it's more of the same PATH stuff ....... They are somewhat out of the way and will need some really exciting anchor tenants if the 'shopping experience' is to be great as great architecture only goes so far.
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Most definitely. If we're just going to see a bunch of Starbucks', Shoppers Drug Marts, and Rexalls occupying space than RioCan would just be wasting their time and money with this endeavor. The true value lies in what kind of retailers we will be seeing. However, if they seriously look into getting unique retailers to occupy space here, we are really going to see one of the most (if not, the most) dynamic shopping experiences in Toronto.
 
Downtown definitely can support another mall, the west side of downtown in particular. The population here of young and youngish affluents is exploding and has been for two decades. I'm very optimistic about this especially after seeing these gorgeous renderings. The only concern--maybe--is a lack of direct subway access but I think it'll be a big draw anyway.
 
Plus Eatons is busting at the seams. It's the most successful mall on the continent - it could use some competition. I could definitely see Riocan pushing this as another fashion focused retail mall with a healthy mix of other uses.

The mall reminds me a ton of Victoria Square in Belfast - architecture, everything. I suspect retail tenants will be similar, with a mix of food, fashion, and entertainment tenants.
 
innsertnamehere said:
Plus Eatons is busting at the seams. It's the most successful mall on the continent - it could use some competition. I could definitely see Riocan pushing this as another fashion focused retail mall with a healthy mix of other uses.

The mall reminds me a ton of Victoria Square in Belfast - architecture, everything. I suspect retail tenants will be similar, with a mix of food, fashion, and entertainment tenants.
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Belfast's Victoria Square may not be a model to follow (though Toronto is certainly NOT Belfast!). There, the Belfast Telegraph recently (February) reported "Almost a dozen retail and restaurant units lie empty at Victoria Square following a series of closures at the Belfast shopping centre. A decade on from the centre's opening, a raft of big name retailers have pulled down the shutters in the last few months. And the property agents for the shopping centre said "while it is disappointing when any tenant chooses not to renew a lease, any vacancies in Victoria Square simply present further opportunities".

I must say that the architecture is remarkably similar!
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innsertnamehere said:
That isn't really the same sort of thing though - it's meant to be more of a service type retail environment for the offices above, not a destination shopping location.
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Dont know about that?...a couple years ago Oxford was talking about a 1 million sq. ft. of retail

Project: development which would include 2.5 million sq ft of office space, a 1.1 million sq ft convention centre, 1 million sq ft of retail space, 600,000 sq ft of residential and 1.7 million sq ft of hotel space. There would also be 5.5 acres of public parkland and 4,000 parking stalls.
 
And? They were also talking about a casino
 
One difference is just the amount of (relatively) affluent consumers so close in and around the site. You dont really have to be a destination per se - you just need to get all those consumers to spend.
 
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