BTW,.... As I already stated, the new Longos at YongeSheppardCentre will only survive by stealing customers away from other generic supermarkets in the area,... since the area's demographic shows that generic market is really a lot smaller than most folks think,.... longer term, I predict the Longos would never thrive but just barely survive (right now, Longos head-office should be considering walking away),... HullmarkCentre's WholeFoodsMarket will be gone (likely sometimes between 2019 to 2024).
Based on the area's increasing ethnic demographic data,....
The WholeFoodsMarket at HullmarkCentre is all smokes and mirror! From Yonge frontage it looks busy only because their Cafe at the front is busy or at least have people hanging out there.
But the WholeFoodsMarket Supermarket component is deserted,... the WholeFoodsMarket supermarket is just an over-glorified, over-hyped and over-priced Mini-Mart,... any of the area's mini-mart like the Rabba (@Avondale), each of the Korean H-Marts (@ Yonge&ChurchAve), 24-Hour H-Mart (@ Yonge&OliveAve) and M2M (@ Yonge&Greenfield) likely out-performs this massive WholeFoodsMarket in terms of number of customers serviced per day and average sales transaction amount per purchase. These little mini-marts are only a fraction of the size of the WholeFoodsMarket and are located in less desireable locations,... but yet, they're likely out-performing WholeFoodsMarket supermarket in terms of number of customer serviced and average sales amount per transaction,.... and you're shocked that I'm predicting WholeFoodsMarket will be gone!
I've dealt with WholeFoodsMarket store management on various community issues, and they're very protective and territorial - they wanted the City to protect their territory from the EmeraldPark Metro (never anything to worry about) and the YongeSheppardCentre Longos opening in the area. Huh???,... that's not what their property tax is paid for,.....
The new YongeSheppardCentre Longos store would be wise to format heavily on Cafe & Ready-Made-Food and lighter on core Grocery section as they've done with their more Urban Longos downtown at BrookfieldPlace, Dundas&Bay, Bloor&Yonge, etc,... VS their traditionally more suburban heavy Grocery format. Basically just set up a small mini-mart and convert everything else into a giant Cafe/Food-Court/Ready-Made-Food area which is what WholeFoodsMarket should have done! Why? Because generic grocery market is a limited and dying market in NorthYorkCentre! That's why the Metro refuse to open a money losing store at EmeraldPark,.... that's why WholeFoodsMarket try to change their format by expanding their Cafe and Ready-Made-Food areas and made their Grocery section smaller - their Cafe area is now jammed with so many more tables and chairs that emergency exits and washrooms are starting to get blocked.
Let's look at the StatisticsCanada Census and HomeSurvey data for this Ward23 that includes NorthYorkCentre:
1996 Population: 52,725
2001 Population: 61,800
http://www1.toronto.ca/city_of_toronto/city_planning/wards/files/pdf/wardprofiles_23.pdf
2006 Population: 79,520
http://www1.toronto.ca/city_of_toronto/city_planning/wards/files/pdf/ward23_2006profiles.pdf
2011 Population: 88,435
http://www1.toronto.ca/City Of Toronto/City Planning/Wards/Files/pdf/W/Ward 23 Profile 2011.pdf
http://www1.toronto.ca/City Of Toronto/City Planning/Wards/Files/pdf/W/Ward 23 NHS Profile 2011.pdf
2016 Population: over 100,000
Thus, in the last 20 years the population of Ward 23 Willowdale have doubled due to over 60 new residential condo towers opening in NorthYorkCentreSecondaryPlan area (Yonge corridor between DorisAve and BeecroftRoad from 401 to FinchHydroCorridor),.... and since the number of supermarkets in the NorthYorkCentre area has remain the same, you would expect their customers sales number to at least double as well!!!,... actually more than double since the local population has increased many folds due to all the new high-density developments within walking distance! But this did NOT happen! Why?
The number of generic supermarkets in NorthYorkCentre remain constant at 3 but shifted more from relying on driving customer to walk-in customers,.... yet, over the last 20 years customer volume at each location has remain the same or decreased,...... there's no BigBox Costco or Walmart opened in the immediate area,....
EmpressWalk Loblaws is the area's most popular supermarket - it opened in the late 1990's (replacing another area Loblaws at SpringFieldAve closed for development) but its customers numbers has basically remain constant while the population in NorthYorkCentre exploded! Likewise the Church&Doris Metro customer volume is similar to the customer level from the former Dominion at that old NorthTownPlaza site - all while the local population within walking distance has exploded!
The old Metro-Dominion-Miracle at WillowdalePlaza at southeast corner of Yonge&Sheppard (now HullmarkCentre) used to be quite popular until about the mid 1990's - the office market already tanked and now residential condos were starting to come online,... then huge amount of residential condo development (9 towers and townhouses) in Avondale area (former Maclean-Hunter land) which completed in early 2000's, Minto Spring, Menkes Cosmos,... these are all a stone throw from the old Metro. And further north there's ConservatoryGroup's Pearl, Platinums and Menkes Ultima's 5 condos towers,... but yet, with all these new residential condos opening up and this area local population exploding the most all around the old Metro,... the customer base at the old Metro was decreasing!!! It basically went from today's EmpressWalk Loblaws customer level in the early 1990s to today's WholeFoodsMarket supermarket only (not Cafe) customer level - that's a huge drop! Why???
Why is the market for generic supermarket limited and dying in NorthYorkCentre??? Drum roll please,.... its mainly due to the area's changing ethnic demographic data,.... and a few other points too,...
Now focus on these data again,... specifically the ethnocultural data of ethnic origin and visible minority data,... while the area population was increasing, the visible minority especially the Korean, Perian and Chinese population was increasing at a significantly higher rate and continues to do so - they're the ethnic groups primarily moving into all the residential condos being added into the area,.... they're the ones driving the increase in population,... and they're the ones that prefer to shop at their ethnic supermarkets (usually outside the area) VS the area's generic supermarkets.
1996 Population: 52,725
2001 Population: 61,800
http://www1.toronto.ca/city_of_toronto/city_planning/wards/files/pdf/wardprofiles_23.pdf
2006 Population: 79,520
http://www1.toronto.ca/city_of_toronto/city_planning/wards/files/pdf/ward23_2006profiles.pdf
2011 Population: 88,435
http://www1.toronto.ca/City Of Toronto/City Planning/Wards/Files/pdf/W/Ward 23 Profile 2011.pdf
http://www1.toronto.ca/City Of Toronto/City Planning/Wards/Files/pdf/W/Ward 23 NHS Profile 2011.pdf
2016 Population: over 100,000
Also notice the Immigration data, significantly higher percentage of 1st generations and recent immigrants VS rest of Toronto,.... thus, this area is being referred to as "the new Spadina" (landing area for new immigrants). Visible minorities, especially first generations and more recent immigrants, are more likely to prefer their own ethnic grocery VS generic grocery.
During this same 20 year period, the generic supermarket in NorthYorkCentre also had to deal with their aging White customer base - many of the original post war bungalow homeowners were becoming empty nester living on more fixed income, starting to down size or move into nursing homes. And as these old bungalows get sold off and rebuilt into new McMansions, it's more likely a visible minority would become the new owner.
Loblaws acquired Chinese T&T - thus, EmpressWalk carry some T&T products (like a fraction of a real T&T store, mainly dry food items - it's not like anyone would ever say "let's go Chinese grocery shopping at EmpressWalk Loblaws") and this might explain why this supermarket hasn't done as poorly as the other area supermarkets - it's basically a few tiny drops of water in the middle of a Chinese ethnic Food Desert. The Church&Doris Metro and old Yonge&Sheppard Metro under-performed while other nearby Metro in areas with higher White demographic like Bathurst&Sheppard, Yonge&Lawrence remains busy.
http://neoformix.com/Projects/DotMaps/TorontoVisMin.html