Walmart Relocation Vaughan (SmartREIT, 1s, ?)

[Amare]

If it ain't broke why fix it right? Judging by their profits, people really dont care how their stores appear aesthetically.

 

[north-of-anything]

If it ain't broke why fix it right? Judging by their profits, people really dont care how their stores appear aesthetically.

Agreed. It's a Wal-Mart, you don't live there, and there's no real prestige to it. At least Wal-Mart is blue, a nice break from the sea of gray you see along the rest of the 400 between the 407 and Teston Road.

The sooner this happens, the better - the current location should be higher density employment lands or apartments by now...

 

[Johnny Au]

Agreed. It's a Wal-Mart, you don't live there, and there's no real prestige to it. At least Wal-Mart is blue, a nice break from the sea of gray you see along the rest of the 400 between the 407 and Teston Road.

Wonderland is along that stretch; how often do you see theme parks with tall roller coasters along an expressway?

 

[raptor]

Driving on the 400 on the weekend, noticed the steel structure for the new Walmart store is more than 50% complete.

 

[innsertnamehere]

Yesterday. This is well under construction.

 

[urbanyimby]

From the SmartCentres 4th quarter investors' presentation, looks like the new walmart opens this summer:

 

[ViveleCanada]

Quick update of the Walmart progress as of last Sunday.

 

[Edward Skira]

 

[W. K. Lis]

Convenient for public transit users... NOT! No surprise from an American company.

 

[toaster29]

I understand that SmartCentres care more about the land value of the current Walmart, than about Walmart's success. But a lot of these units, especially at Transit City, do not have any parking. You have thousands of new people in the area without a car, and I can't see them walking that far to the new Walmart.

 

[Amare]

Walmart really needs to come up with an urban format to their stores. Having a format that would allow the store to locate inside a large mixed-use developments would allow them to locate their stores closer to city centres. Especially as SmartCentrres seeks to intensify their land.

And by "urban" format i'm not referring to smaller scale stores, im referring to having the same sized stores but just placed in the podium levels of a given development.

 

[ViveleCanada]

Is anyone aware of what is happening to the helipad? It's rather late into construction and there have not been any signs of them preparing to demolish it. It would seem odd to me if Smartcentres really want to keep it considering their new office sits next to the main subway entrance and they are a stones throw away from a major highway (actually, I just realized a helipad is quite handy considering the 400 was always jammed up throughout the weekday before the pandemic). Photo was taken on Saturday evening, the dirt mound is gone and the parking lot looks like a parking lot now. The nice blue hues are also in.

 

[innsertnamehere]

My understanding is that Mitch Goldhar uses it as his own personal Helipad. While previously he likely walked over from his office to it, I imagine now he'll simply have someone drive him over. It's not too far.

I believe it sits far enough south on the property to be in the "future development" area of the Wal-mart Site plan, so I imagine it's staying. Goldhar probably wants a way to get from the office to his cottage or to Florida easily and traffic-free still.

 

[WislaHD]

Q2 Investors Report suggests that this is still planned to open in Fall 2020.

 

[ViveleCanada]

Photos from yesterday. Store pretty much looks about done on the outside. Hunted the internet for a closing date for the old Walmart, but couldn't find it. The old Walmart looks to be on the way out soon, either way, as they have blocked off large sections of the store and have recently been doing quite a lot of sales.