$100 Million Wellington/401 Retail Project

[MolsonExport]

Ah, it is a bad habit of mine to instantly make nasty nicknames of streets/areas, especially if they are places that I do not like for some reason. Never outgrew it

[ssiguy]

Originally Posted by haljackey

How long did it take you to think up this post? I should buy you a beer.

A MolsonExport perchance?

I can't figure where exactly this is going to go. Will it be north or south of the 401? It would be great if it was something novel like IKEA. Unless it is something unique that will bring in customers outside of the city {which IKEA definitely does} then it will certainly create construction jobs and employment for the first 6 months but as it starts to suck away business from other areas, the gain will be slight. It could hurt St.Thomas retail as well.

The only long term gain I can see is if it is further enough south of the 401 that the Wellington Road bus will have to be extended further south to serve the consumers as well as the staff. Maybe then the city might just decide to extend the service a few minutes to St.Thomas so commuting from St.Thomas to London becomes doable on transit. If I was annexed by London, paying higher taxes, but didn't get a four laned Wellington or transit service I would be livid!

Extended transit service south of the 401 to the new center should have been a requirement BEFORE this deal went thru.

[MrSlippery519]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

I can't figure where exactly this is going to go. Will it be north or south of the 401? It would be great if it was something novel like IKEA. Unless it is something unique that will bring in customers outside of the city {which IKEA definitely does} then it will certainly create construction jobs and employment for the first 6 months but as it starts to suck away business from other areas, the gain will be slight. It could hurt St.Thomas retail as well.

This will be right on the south side of the 401, beside Costco essentially. There is no question this will hurt WhiteOak's as well as other close retail like the outlets north of Exeter I would bet we see some of those places move to this "new" spot once leases are up.

Of course that is exactly what we do not want to happen, I would love to see an Ikea but they pretty much said that is not happening. An Ikea would legitimately bring people to London to shop, which would in turn cause less stress on other retail if a large portion of this new development was people not living in London...again sadly this does not look like it will be the case.

[MolsonExport]

so what will eventually become of the extensive newly vacated retail that is sure to emerge in South London, given becoming-big-box-barf-beyond-belief at Wellington and Wonderbread/Excrement res? They can't all be replaced with ink-refill and halal meat emporiums. South London will become like Oxbury/Northland malls. Yay!

[HillStreetBlues]

The rumour about Ikea coming to Southwestern Ontario has been given print space for more than a decade. I’ve read articles with the identical quote (“We are continually reviewing our expansion opportunities in Canada, but at this time there is no store planned for [Cambridge/Kitchener/Kitchener-Waterloo]”) from different spokespeople in different publications from different decades.

I personally can’t understand it. I happen to live pretty “close” (by the standards of suburbanites who don’t have an issue having to take a highway to get to a store) to the Burlington Plains Road store. I went there once with a friend. I’m using this term loosely, too, as I wouldn’t subject anyone I liked to the kind of experience that is walking through a giant warehouse full of crap destined to fall apart and wind up in the landfill. Still, I understand it’s popular, so if there must be big box sprawl on Wellington South, it may as well be something that would draw people to the city (even if they will not likely shop or eat anywhere else).

I’m curious about the claims of “1200 jobs.” Are those the temporary construction jobs, or the retail jobs, or a combination? It sounds like a good headline, but I think a better metric would be something along the lines of the total wages being paid. Then maybe people would be able to more easily compare a real “job creator” like this with Kellogg’s throwing 500 people out of work.

As an aside, I agree with the notion that buses should be extended south to serve this new area. But let’s face it: these sprawling parking lots with stores at the other side of them are designed in such a way that transit service to them can’t help but be terrible. Even if LTC provided the frequency needed to encourage ridership by shoppers and employees (which is not going to happen), the walk from the transit stop to the front door of the shop you need to get to is across a vast expanse of asphalt. If shopping, you have to walk across one vast expanse of asphalt to go to the big box widget store, then walk across another vast expanse of asphalt (now with shopping bags) to get to the Wal-Mart to buy your microwave popcorn and TV dinners. No one is going to be doing that. The thing is going to be designed in such a way that driving will be the only option, and the mandated level of basic transit service will mean crummier service in existing areas.

[MrSlippery519]

Have not heard much about this "development" recently. Driving by yesterday evening it looks like trees are being cleared near the south east corner of the pond.

Anyone have updates??

[Stevo26]

Originally Posted by HillStreetBlues

The rumour about Ikea coming to Southwestern Ontario has been given print space for more than a decade. I’ve read articles with the identical quote (“We are continually reviewing our expansion opportunities in Canada, but at this time there is no store planned for [Cambridge/Kitchener/Kitchener-Waterloo]”) from different spokespeople in different publications from different decades.

<snip>

Well, the Ikea situation is a lot like what they tell people in the army: "If the army wanted you to have one, it would have issued you one", meaning if Ikea felt they could have made a reasonably good profit from a store in London, they would have located one here.

The fact that they haven't done so at any time in the last two decades pretty well answers the profitability question. Another way to look at the situation is to recognize the fact that Ikea stores are physically very large. Large stores cost a lot of money to run. To generate the revenues needed, you need a lot of product turnover. To get that turnover, you need lots of customers who come back repeatedly.

Now consider the demographics in London and surrounding areas. In London, you have maybe 375,000 people. Of that number, maybe 60%, or 230,000 are working-age adults and retirees. Retirees tend not to need much new furniture, so lop off another thirty or forty thousand, and that leaves you with 190,000 potential buyers. Of that 190,000, about 12,000 or so are post-secondary students with limited finances who could buy only limited amounts of Ikea stuff. Plus, they're only here 16 months in every 24-month academic cycle, since a school year bridges over two years, not one.

That whittles your customer base down to about 178,000. Of that 178,000, maybe 40% make enough money to shop at Ikea. The remaining 60% either don't like modern furniture, or shop at places like The Brick, Bad Boy, Leon's or Teppermans because they can finance their purchases over time.

So this leaves you with only 71,000 potential shoppers in London. Rule out the 100,000 or so people living in rural and semi-rural areas located less than 40km outside of London. I'm not trying to generalize here, but rural types seem to like traditionally-styled furniture.

Now consider the population that the Burlington Ikea store can draw as potential customers. Burlington has about 100,000 people. Nearby Hamilton has 700,000. Oakville and Mississauga together have close to 800,000 people. Don't forget Kitchener-Waterloo, which is only 40km away. There's another 500,000 at a minimum. Total population: about 2.3 million. All of these cities have large post-secondary student populations as well. Even if you cut the potential pool of customers to account for the demographic factors I mentioned earlier, you would still have more than one million potential customers.

Now compare that one million with the population of potential buyers in London, which is 71,000 at best. Where do you think Ikea will locate a store that is likely to generate the most profits and cost the least to run?

[GreatTallNorth2]

Originally Posted by Stevo26

Well, the Ikea situation is a lot like what they tell people in the army: "If the army wanted you to have one, it would have issued you one", meaning if Ikea felt they could have made a reasonably good profit from a store in London, they would have located one here.

The fact that they haven't done so at any time in the last two decades pretty well answers the profitability question. Another way to look at the situation is to recognize the fact that Ikea stores are physically very large. Large stores cost a lot of money to run. To generate the revenues needed, you need a lot of product turnover. To get that turnover, you need lots of customers who come back repeatedly.

Now consider the demographics in London and surrounding areas. In London, you have maybe 375,000 people. Of that number, maybe 60%, or 230,000 are working-age adults and retirees. Retirees tend not to need much new furniture, so lop off another thirty or forty thousand, and that leaves you with 190,000 potential buyers. Of that 190,000, about 12,000 or so are post-secondary students with limited finances who could buy only limited amounts of Ikea stuff. Plus, they're only here 16 months in every 24-month academic cycle, since a school year bridges over two years, not one.

That whittles your customer base down to about 178,000. Of that 178,000, maybe 40% make enough money to shop at Ikea. The remaining 60% either don't like modern furniture, or shop at places like The Brick, Bad Boy, Leon's or Teppermans because they can finance their purchases over time.

So this leaves you with only 71,000 potential shoppers in London. Rule out the 100,000 or so people living in rural and semi-rural areas located less than 40km outside of London. I'm not trying to generalize here, but rural types seem to like traditionally-styled furniture.

Now consider the population that the Burlington Ikea store can draw as potential customers. Burlington has about 100,000 people. Nearby Hamilton has 700,000. Oakville and Mississauga together have close to 800,000 people. Don't forget Kitchener-Waterloo, which is only 40km away. There's another 500,000 at a minimum. Total population: about 2.3 million. All of these cities have large post-secondary student populations as well. Even if you cut the potential pool of customers to account for the demographic factors I mentioned earlier, you would still have more than one million potential customers.

Now compare that one million with the population of potential buyers in London, which is 71,000 at best. Where do you think Ikea will locate a store that is likely to generate the most profits and cost the least to run?

Although I am not holding my breath for Ikea to open in London, I somewhat disagree with your logic and how you are arriving at your equations. Ikea obviously builds stores where they think it fits. For example, they are building a large store in Winnipeg - total population of 750,000? I would say that London's regional shopping area is a bigger population area than Winnipeg, and Ikea is more of a regional store - London draws a lot of people from Windsor, Sarnia, Chatham, Stratford, Woodstock, and also many rural areas as well. I know for a fact that many shoppers come to London for certain stores that are not available to them in their area. An Ikea would draw similarly and if it was on the 401, would draw a lot of that traffic. Do I think it's going to happen soon? No, probably not, but it certainly wouldn't shock me it they did open.

[HillStreetBlues]

Originally Posted by Stevo26

Well, the Ikea situation is a lot like what they tell people in the army: "If the army wanted you to have one, it would have issued you one", meaning if Ikea felt they could have made a reasonably good profit from a store in London, they would have located one here.

The fact that they haven't done so at any time in the last two decades pretty well answers the profitability question. Another way to look at the situation is to recognize the fact that Ikea stores are physically very large. Large stores cost a lot of money to run. To generate the revenues needed, you need a lot of product turnover. To get that turnover, you need lots of customers who come back repeatedly.

Now consider the demographics in London and surrounding areas. In London, you have maybe 375,000 people. Of that number, maybe 60%, or 230,000 are working-age adults and retirees. Retirees tend not to need much new furniture, so lop off another thirty or forty thousand, and that leaves you with 190,000 potential buyers. Of that 190,000, about 12,000 or so are post-secondary students with limited finances who could buy only limited amounts of Ikea stuff. Plus, they're only here 16 months in every 24-month academic cycle, since a school year bridges over two years, not one.

That whittles your customer base down to about 178,000. Of that 178,000, maybe 40% make enough money to shop at Ikea. The remaining 60% either don't like modern furniture, or shop at places like The Brick, Bad Boy, Leon's or Teppermans because they can finance their purchases over time.

So this leaves you with only 71,000 potential shoppers in London. Rule out the 100,000 or so people living in rural and semi-rural areas located less than 40km outside of London. I'm not trying to generalize here, but rural types seem to like traditionally-styled furniture.

Now consider the population that the Burlington Ikea store can draw as potential customers. Burlington has about 100,000 people. Nearby Hamilton has 700,000. Oakville and Mississauga together have close to 800,000 people. Don't forget Kitchener-Waterloo, which is only 40km away. There's another 500,000 at a minimum. Total population: about 2.3 million. All of these cities have large post-secondary student populations as well. Even if you cut the potential pool of customers to account for the demographic factors I mentioned earlier, you would still have more than one million potential customers.

Now compare that one million with the population of potential buyers in London, which is 71,000 at best. Where do you think Ikea will locate a store that is likely to generate the most profits and cost the least to run?

Well, the comment of mine you replied to was posted back in July. I did read something about what Ikea thinks about in terms of demographics at that time, and that was saying similar things to what you are, particularly vis a vis retired population. This wasn’t about London, of course, just generally, but the average higher age and high number of retirees in Woodstock and London may weigh against it.

Like GreatTallNorth, I agree that there’s probably not going to be one coming to London, but I’m not sure I agree with your logic. Downtown Kitchener is more than 70 kilometers from the Plains Road Ikea, not 40 kilometers, and Waterloo Region residents would be more likely to come to a London Ikea than the Burlington one (but I know people who make the drive, or order delivery, there). It’s also strange of you to say “500,000 at least” in Waterloo, which is larger than the total population, after you claimed there are only 178,000 potential shoppers in London.

And you rule out London’s 12,000 post-secondary students, but then add the GTA’s “large post-secondary student populations.”

I’m still not disagreeing with your conclusion: yes, if Ikea thought it would be profitable, they would probably have done it by now. Like I said, many cities in southern Ontario have been speculating for a while that they would be getting one. Maybe one day. Again, like GreatTallNorth, I wouldn’t be shocked if it happened, but neither would I be shocked if it never does.

[MrSlippery519]

Originally Posted by GreatTallNorth2

Although I am not holding my breath for Ikea to open in London, I somewhat disagree with your logic and how you are arriving at your equations. Ikea obviously builds stores where they think it fits. For example, they are building a large store in Winnipeg - total population of 750,000? I would say that London's regional shopping area is a bigger population area than Winnipeg, and Ikea is more of a regional store - London draws a lot of people from Windsor, Sarnia, Chatham, Stratford, Woodstock, and also many rural areas as well. I know for a fact that many shoppers come to London for certain stores that are not available to them in their area. An Ikea would draw similarly and if it was on the 401, would draw a lot of that traffic. Do I think it's going to happen soon? No, probably not, but it certainly wouldn't shock me it they did open.

I would tend to agree, while Stevo26 does have some good arguments the numbers are not a fair assessment for the amount of shoppers. I know plenty of people who drive from London to Ikea so similarly people would drive to London from Windsor, Sarnia, Chatham, Stratford, Woodstock, KW, etc if there were an Ikea here.

Now granted I do not think it will happen in this development either, but I do think it would be a great idea and would actually make this development a little more compelling. Lets hope there is at least something "special" about this Bass Pro or something like that.

Back to the work being done, the entire area surrounding the "pond" is now cleared of trees so seems as though they are moving ahead even though I cannot seem to find any new info.

[north 42]

Originally Posted by GreatTallNorth2

Although I am not holding my breath for Ikea to open in London, I somewhat disagree with your logic and how you are arriving at your equations. Ikea obviously builds stores where they think it fits. For example, they are building a large store in Winnipeg - total population of 750,000? I would say that London's regional shopping area is a bigger population area than Winnipeg, and Ikea is more of a regional store - London draws a lot of people from Windsor, Sarnia, Chatham, Stratford, Woodstock, and also many rural areas as well. I know for a fact that many shoppers come to London for certain stores that are not available to them in their area. An Ikea would draw similarly and if it was on the 401, would draw a lot of that traffic. Do I think it's going to happen soon? No, probably not, but it certainly wouldn't shock me it they did open.

All the Windsorites I know go to the IKEA store in Canton, Michigan, a 20 minute drive from Windsor. There may be a few people from Windsor who would drive to London instead, but probably not too many. I Doubt many people from Windsor would drive to London to shop, when the options in Detroit are way better and closer.

[ssiguy]

The MINIMUM radius of a potential IKEA store is Middlesex, Elgin, and Oxford counties...........650,000.

I think shoppers from Windsor is a stretch but certainly not from Lambton/Chatham-Kent/Perth/Huron/Halimand counties, another 400,000. It's true if they thought it made sense they would have done it by now but I think London does have the population to support it.

[Symz]

Originally Posted by GreatTallNorth2

Although I am not holding my breath for Ikea to open in London, I somewhat disagree with your logic and how you are arriving at your equations. Ikea obviously builds stores where they think it fits. For example, they are building a large store in Winnipeg - total population of 750,000? I would say that London's regional shopping area is a bigger population area than Winnipeg, and Ikea is more of a regional store - London draws a lot of people from Windsor, Sarnia, Chatham, Stratford, Woodstock, and also many rural areas as well. I know for a fact that many shoppers come to London for certain stores that are not available to them in their area. An Ikea would draw similarly and if it was on the 401, would draw a lot of that traffic. Do I think it's going to happen soon? No, probably not, but it certainly wouldn't shock me it they did open.

Small correction. No one from Windsor really goes to London to shop. If people don't shop in Windsor they shop in Detroit where there's more variety and brands than in Canada for cheaper prices. It's a benefit and bane to Windsor. That's why we'd never see an Ikea here since there is one in Detroit.

One in London seems feasible at some point, but when, who knows.

[tyeman200]

Originally Posted by MrSlippery519

Have not heard much about this "development" recently. Driving by yesterday evening it looks like trees are being cleared near the south east corner of the pond.

Anyone have updates??

The only thing I can find on it, is an article from July about an agreement with UTRCA.

I do hate how they are going to go through with it. My whole thing (and from what I've read in this topic) is that they should try to improve more of the other shopping areas first before even thinking of doing this. Once White oaks, westmount, and downtown is sprawling with growth and potential, maybe then we can think about putting another big box plaza in our city.

[GreatTallNorth2]

Originally Posted by Symz

Small correction. No one from Windsor really goes to London to shop. If people don't shop in Windsor they shop in Detroit where there's more variety and brands than in Canada for cheaper prices. It's a benefit and bane to Windsor. That's why we'd never see an Ikea here since there is one in Detroit.

One in London seems feasible at some point, but when, who knows.

I can assure you that a significant amount of people from all the areas I mentioned shop/get support at the apple store in London. It is a destination shop just like Ikea would be.

[MolsonExport]

I am not exactly dying to have a giant store of cheapish slipshot furniture in London. It would be good for killing a couple of afternoons a year, but then I would have to struggle with those wretched flat packs, hardware kits, and indecipherable guides (memories of living on a student budget).

[GreatTallNorth2]

^Yes, but how about the Swedish meatballs?

[MrSlippery519]

Originally Posted by tyeman200

The only thing I can find on it, is an article from July about an agreement with UTRCA.

I do hate how they are going to go through with it. My whole thing (and from what I've read in this topic) is that they should try to improve more of the other shopping areas first before even thinking of doing this. Once White oaks, westmount, and downtown is sprawling with growth and potential, maybe then we can think about putting another big box plaza in our city.

I did see that as well and something about the city not getting compensation for the cut trees.

I do agree as well, there is no question this will take shoppers away from whiteoaks and the small outlets north of Exeter. This is why I keep hoping there is something special to actually bring people too London to shop, that might at least partial reduce the impact on whiteoaks, etc.

Either way this is happening so will have to see.

[north 42]

Originally Posted by GreatTallNorth2

I can assure you that a significant amount of people from all the areas I mentioned shop/get support at the apple store in London. It is a destination shop just like Ikea would be.

Why would someone from Wiindsor drive almost 2 hours to London to go to an Apple Store, when we have one only 20 minutes away in Troy, Michigan? Sure for the other cities you mentioned, but London is pretty much off the radar for Windsorites for shopping choices, it's either local, Detroit or Toronto for us!

[MrSlippery519]

Originally Posted by north 42

Why would someone from Wiindsor drive almost 2 hours to London to go to an Apple Store, when we have one only 20 minutes away in Troy, Michigan? Sure for the other cities you mentioned, but London is pretty much off the radar for Windsorites for shopping choices, it's either local, Detroit or Toronto for us!

You are right the large majority of people in that area, Windsor/lasalle/Amherst/etc would go to Detroit to shop that said some of them do prefer to shop in Canada.

Add in unless you live downtown Windsor, getting to the closest Ikea is 45+minutes away assuming there is not wait at the boarder, so driving under 2 hours to London is not that dramatic of a difference (again for some people)....I personally shop in the US all the time lol.