mkerian
Active Member
Someone else caught that on June 6
Looks like the price went up by a few million when it was last announced.
Looks like the price went up by a few million when it was last announced.
Toronto Yonge Sheppard Centre Renovations and Expansion | 123.13m | 35s | RioCan | BDP Quadrangle
- Thread starter AlbertC
- Start date
AHK
Senior Member
That's a goodly amount of the '....subject to the usual closing adjustments....'
sunnyraytoronto
Senior Member
With retail market tanking in 2017 - during major renovation/reconstruction of Yonge-Sheppard Centre; now 30% retail vacancy - with majority of retailers being food oriented - Yonge-Sheppard Centre basically turning into a giant Food Court,.... now RioCan Yonge-Sheppard Centre (or their consultants on their behalf) seems to be conducting on-line survey to help determine future direction of the mall - to help “choose the next retailers!”??? So if you’re as opinionated as me - or you just really want that _____ store in here,..... here’s your chance to be heard.
taal
Senior Member
I'm curious so are they struggling to attract new tenants ? It does seem like there are still a lot of vacant stores, is it the rental rates ? Foot traffic ?
condovo
Senior Member
^^^ I was just there today for the first time. As much as it's been renovated, it's still rather bland, dark and dated-looking inside. Longo's is nice. The rest is meh. And the wayfinding is terrible, which I suppose is fixable. It reminds me of Alexis Nihon Plaza in Montreal. That's not a compliment.
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sunnyraytoronto
Senior Member
Yonge Sheppard Centre seems to be struggling to attract the variety of retailers a mall “should” have,...getting a balance so people would be tempted to go and spend a decent amount of time & money at this mall!
The current mix of retailers doesn’t really draw in any of the major ethnic groups (Chinese, Persian, Korean) in this diverse area. If that could be done via small urban grocers like H-marts (Korean) and other retailers follow,.... then Yonge-Sheppard Centre would have the potential to become a vibrant Community Hub.
Since retail market tanked in 2017, those fashion & electronic retailers never really materialized here (only Oshkosh, Reitman returning & Winners staying) - folks buying a lot of those stuff online now. But you can’t buy a hot meal on amazon! A lot of the non-food court retail space went to food oriented retailers - including all the Yonge frontage! Yonge-Sheppard Centre has become a great place to spend your lunch money,.... but there’s really nothing else to keep anyone here much longer,.... can a mall survive on lunch money???
Retailers like Dollarama, Winners & Shoppers Drug Mart have decent customer volume throughout the day - too early to determine on Longo’s as many are still trying out the supermarket - not a habit yet. The rest of the mall is mainly a giant food court,.... and there’s a Fuzz Wax Bar in the middle of the mall - prime location! Mall could probably benefit from LCBO/Beer store.
Lease/rental charges are a lot higher than before RioCan’s renovation/reconstruction.
30% vacant rate is high, especially considering it’s now generally 20% for mall. Funny thing is, nearby Emerald Park has no vacancy in their 75 Pacific Mall cubical retail spaces! At Emerald Park whenever one retailers bottom up and vacate the space - another one opens up there quickly!
The vast majority of Yonge-Sheppard Centre foot traffic are just folks commuting through the mall between their condo/apartment/office and the TTC subway station in the mall - & they won’t be spending a penny in the mall. Rarely see a long line at any of the restaurants or food court stalls. A few folks will be carrying shopping bags from Dollarama, Winners, ShopperDrugMart,... and now Longo’s - even at Longo’s rare to see anyone with full shopping cart - mainly carry one or two shopping bags & walking out - so not many are driving & loading up the car.
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taal
Senior Member
Thanks for the explanation ! Now the thing is Emermald Park is just about 100% food as well ? That seems to be the theme for NYCC ! I'd wager from Finch <-> Yonge, what maybe 90% of all the retail is food related ? (be it restaurants, convenience stores, grocery stores, ...) and they generally seem to do really well !
I always thought a bulk barn would help Sheppard Center (of course that's just more food : ).
Really perplexed why T&T or the like didn't go into any spot in the area (I know they tried back in the day), mind you there are so many smaller asian convince stores already.
NYCC has a very interesting dynamic !
I think the office market has been on a very slow decline for 10 years (I'm not talking about new builds, I'm just talking about the % of leased space).
With that said, as likely anyone in the area knows, walk around any weeknight after 6/7pm and the area is fairly packed ! I wager that can be attributed to the fact that the population in and around NYCC seem to eat out much more then the average in the rest of the city (or at least that's how I see it).
I always thought a bulk barn would help Sheppard Center (of course that's just more food : ).
Really perplexed why T&T or the like didn't go into any spot in the area (I know they tried back in the day), mind you there are so many smaller asian convince stores already.
NYCC has a very interesting dynamic !
I think the office market has been on a very slow decline for 10 years (I'm not talking about new builds, I'm just talking about the % of leased space).
With that said, as likely anyone in the area knows, walk around any weeknight after 6/7pm and the area is fairly packed ! I wager that can be attributed to the fact that the population in and around NYCC seem to eat out much more then the average in the rest of the city (or at least that's how I see it).
NYCC retail is a bit of a disaster if you ask me. Best Buy at Empress Walk shut down and is being replaced by an RBC and another Shoppers. Third one between Empress and Sheppard.
taal
Senior Member
Depends on one's perspective, in comparison to many other areas of the city the retail can be arguably seen as doing fairly well (outside of say Sheppard Center), the push for smaller retailers (with affordable rents) is a thing in NYCC, and flourishes more than the majority of the city. With that said, it is highly concentrated on non-diverse food services, so in that sense, it's not great.
It's mainly food along the entire strip and a lot of nail/beauty type places. And the food is heavily Korean/Asian. Not a lot for me and I both work and live up here. The retail strip on Yonge north of Lawrence (let alone further south) is a breath of fresh air compared to here (for me at least).
DB13
New Member
Agree. Lawrence is much nicer. Nothing wrong with Asian places but when that's virtually the entirety of independent businesses, it gets dull.
taal
Senior Member
Completely agreed with that point re: variety, but it's just interesting how the retail here seems to thrive outside the Malls - whereas areas like the Yonge / Lawrence stretch and others throughout the city have struggled more - I wager the retail vacancy in NYCC outside the malls is amongst the lowest, even when there is vacancy the turnover is very quick. Makes you wonder why - though my theory is the answer lies in the demographic it self and the amount they eat out in comparison to the average in the city ... While I know there are many more people in NYCC, I wager NYCC is busier than Yonge and Eglinton at night *after* work and it's a much larger strip compared to Y&E which is really just a block in either direction ...
But no, variety and NYCC don't go hand in hand !
But no, variety and NYCC don't go hand in hand !
sunnyraytoronto
Senior Member
Actually, EmeraldPark retail is about 2/3 food-oriented (maybe you only notice its Yonge frontage shops where 90% food-oriented); the other 1/3 are non-food related like a couple Pharmacy, 2 Drycleaners/Alteration, Tattoo parlour, high end headphones, high-end fashion, numerous nail parlour, make-up store, cell phone repair, shoe repair, variety store, Vape, hair saloon, real estate office, print/tax place?, jeweller, toy store, etc,... mostly independent mom&pops,... challenge is what type of business can fit into a small Pacific Mall cubicle store!
The old Sheppard Centre (before renovation) had a Bulk store (not Loblaw's Bulk Barn but another brand of bulk retailer); they did pretty well, but with RioCan renovation & increase in lease cost - they choose not to come back.
Those numerous small Asian grocers along Yonge St are H-mart/m2m which are Korean - quite a different offering than a Chinese supermarket like T&T. It's like going into a Mark&Spencer (British) looking for Italian grocery!
Demographically, there's 25% Chinese in North York Centre (Ward 18 Willowdale), Loblaw's T&T committed to Emerald Park in 2008 but bailed in 2011 because Bazis promise of 2011 occupancy was impossible since they just started digging then! T&T is a complex beast,... they're research show T&T would do well here,.... they've been constantly back and forth (literally),... Soon there will be multiple options for T&T (and any other supermarket) to open in North York Centre - thus, I'm assuming T&T would play multiple options against each other to get the best lease rates/terms/conditions:
- (South China based) Aoyuan's M2M phase 1 in 5 years with 55,000 sq ft (full supermarket)
- Conservatory Group's Pearl Place with 29,000 square feet (half supermarket) "green grocer" rumoured 5 years ago to be Sobey's but now with WholeFoodsMarket at HullmarkCentre & Longo's at Yonge-Sheppard Centre???
- Times Group's 4800 Yonge redevelopment - term of agreement with City for 4 towers with podium mall & supermarket with development application likely to be formally submitted in next few months - maybe complete in 7-10 years
- Outside of North York Centre - (Hong Kong based) Concord Adex Park Place's masterplan also includes a supermarket
NOTE: Emerald Park's 2nd floor 30,800 sq ft supermarket space (not including the 10,600 sq ft taken up by LCBO) been ready & waiting since 2015! (in play)
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