Northern Ontario developments!

[vid]

The PCs believe they have a chance in Thunder Bay every year, too. It's meaningless.

[swimmer_spe]

I doubt any seat is safe this upcoming election. Votes want change. We might be in a minority government situation when all is said and done.

[Loco101]

The debates over Northern Ontario issues, minimum wage, hydro rates, etc. will be interesting but we don't know what the main topics will be for the election campaign next year. If the economy continues to do what it is doing now then I just can't see much appetite for change. And that means incumbents of all parties will have the advantage.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Loco101

The debates over Northern Ontario issues, minimum wage, hydro rates, etc. will be interesting but we don't know what the main topics will be for the election campaign next year. If the economy continues to do what it is doing now then I just can't see much appetite for change. And that means incumbents of all parties will have the advantage.

I have been talking to many people in the North. There is an appetite for change. The fact that the PCs won the Soo by election, after being voted out for more than 30 years, speaks to the change that people want.

[vid]

There were some complex local dynamics at play in Sault Ste. Marie in that by-election that won't exist in most other ridings, especially in the north since our ridings span numerous communities and name recognition is very limited. The candidate for Thunder Bay-Superior North lives in Waterloo. That's not going to give him any kind of benefit over Michael Gravelle (who is actually delivering on a lot of his promises now that he is a minister) or Andrew Foulds (who will likely run again and has name recognition—he is one of the most popular members of Thunder Bay city council).

There are no notable PC members here, so it's always an uphill battle for them. If they can't even get someone living in the city to run here, why should they represent us? They're known here as the party that runs used car dealers, shady restaurant owners, overpaid civil servants who are afraid of wifi, and racists. Wynne could literally say she hates our city, she'll probably still win it unless the PCs actually change themselves to be more palatable to us. And I highly doubt they will, since they shrug off everything I suggest to them that would make me want to vote for them.

[Loco101]

I have to agree with vid about the Sault not being a good example for Northern Ontario. The electoral district consists of basically the city limits. The three main candidates for the by-election were two current city councillors and a former mayor. The candidate's names were just as influential as the political party names. The PC Party on its own is quite disliked by most in the Sault. Ross Romano who is now MPP won on his own and Patrick Brown and the party did NOT help him at all. He received 40% of the total votes. Romano would be a much better party leader than Brown in my opinion. I find that Romano is quite socially liberal and is the type of person who would make the PC Party more appealing to the general public.

Here in Timmins, the PCs will not be able to find a popular candidate. Rumours of Jamie Lim running is quite funny for the reasons I mentioned before. Gilles Bisson (NDP) is unbeatable until he retires. The new ridings will probably vote NDP as well as they currently have NDP MPPs. I also have to mention that the anti-Liberal sentiment will not be nearly as strong come election time for much of Northern Ontario.

[TbayON]

THUNDER BAY

Some updates from Thunder Bay:

-Reid's Furniture is updating the facade of their clearance centre on Balmoral Ave., and also adding an approximately 3400 SF addition on the back. Work is well underway.
-The latest office building at the Riverside development on Balmoral at William is pretty well complete. Hatch Engineering has moved their offices into the building
-St. Joseph's Care Group is taking over most of the former call centre space at Victoriaville Mall. Renovations have already started. A small part of the space will still be left to leasing.
-Sounds like Bruno's Contracting is finally starting the building in Innova Park that they had prepped the land for about 1 year ago.
-Mark's will be moving from their current location in the Thunder Centre to a new, larger space attached to the new Home Sense/Winners store (also in the Thunder Centre). Rumours have Nygard taking over the soon-to-be vacated Marks space.
-Structural steel is progressing at the new TECH Hub at Confederation College.
-The structure of the new Delta Hotel at the waterfront is pretty well up, and work is progressing on getting the building closed in before winter weather hits.
-Work is underway on a second Booster Juice on Memorial Ave.

[Loco101]

Timmins now has 4 Dollarama locations. A location just opened in the Timmins Square shopping centre even though there is already a standalone location right nearby in front of Walmart.

Mark's just moved out of its standalone location in front of Canadian Tire and back into Timmins Square with less floor space.

Pennington's in its own building in front of Home Depot is now only using half of that building.

Lots of empty retail spaces right now in Timmins. But the mines are doing well overall and there really isn't any unemployment. We have very few locally owned independent stores.

[F. Lionel]

Originally Posted by TbayON

THUNDER BAY
-Reid's Furniture is updating the facade of their clearance centre on Balmoral Ave., and also adding an approximately 3400 SF addition on the back. Work is well underway.
-

This is going to be branded as an Ashley Home Store. They are advertising for sales associates on Indeed right now.

I wonder, if Nygard moves out of the Walmart Power Centre, who might be interested in that space...

[swimmer_spe]

I am not sure about Thunder Bay, and Timmins

But I know the Soo, Sudbury and North Bay all have a Sears in a major mall. With the liquidation and closure, what do you think will happen to those large retail spaces?

[wave46]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

I am not sure about Thunder Bay, and Timmins

But I know the Soo, Sudbury and North Bay all have a Sears in a major mall. With the liquidation and closure, what do you think will happen to those large retail spaces?

The occupancy level in the New Sudbury Shopping Centre is very high. I'd imagine that the mall ownership will subdivide Sears' area and fill it that way fairly successfully.

The Northgate mall in North Bay will likely do the same thing - I am not sure how successful they'll be in re-leasing it, though.

Square One in Timmins will have a heck of a time - they've lost two major anchors since 2010. I'm not sure there is much market for that much retail space up there.

[vid]

Sears is Intercity's largest anchor store, but their sales are so poor that that end of the mall has a lot of trouble attracting tenants. When spaces become vacant, that's usually where they go vacant. A lot of stores in that end have actually moved toward the Lowes and food court at the opposite end of the mall as vacancies have come up down there over the past few years.

The mall intends to redevelop the space entirely, which either means subdividing or completely demolishing the former Sears and building a new layout at that end of the mall. They've actually seemed very optimistic about the closure. I can see them doing a full renovation of the mall to be more inline with their recent re-branding. It's the city's only true mall (all the other indoor malls have been mostly converted to strip mall formats, except Grandview and Arthur Street but both are small) so it's a valuable property. I'm pretty sure it's the best performing mall in Northern Ontario in terms of occupancy and lease revenue.

[Loco101]

Originally Posted by wave46

The occupancy level in the New Sudbury Shopping Centre is very high. I'd imagine that the mall ownership will subdivide Sears' area and fill it that way fairly successfully.

The Northgate mall in North Bay will likely do the same thing - I am not sure how successful they'll be in re-leasing it, though.

Square One in Timmins will have a heck of a time - they've lost two major anchors since 2010. I'm not sure there is much market for that much retail space up there.

I don't think the New Sudbury Centre will have trouble attracting new tenants. Mainly because of Sudbury being the regional shopping city for Northeastern Ontario. But the Northgate Shopping Centre and Timmins Square will definitely have lots of empty space for awhile. The Station Mall in the Sault might as well.

Ours Sears store in Timmins was originally an addition to the Timmins Square around 1987. It later moved to the former Walmart location in the mall about 8 or 9 years ago I think which had more floor space. But the store went downhill and eventually became a Sears Outlet location. And things got worse and it closed earlier this year. Nobody is expecting anything to move into the empty space.

[Loco101]

Originally Posted by vid

Sears is Intercity's largest anchor store, but their sales are so poor that that end of the mall has a lot of trouble attracting tenants. When spaces become vacant, that's usually where they go vacant. A lot of stores in that end have actually moved toward the Lowes and food court at the opposite end of the mall as vacancies have come up down there over the past few years.

The mall intends to redevelop the space entirely, which either means subdividing or completely demolishing the former Sears and building a new layout at that end of the mall. They've actually seemed very optimistic about the closure. I can see them doing a full renovation of the mall to be more inline with their recent re-branding. It's the city's only true mall (all the other indoor malls have been mostly converted to strip mall formats, except Grandview and Arthur Street but both are small) so it's a valuable property. I'm pretty sure it's the best performing mall in Northern Ontario in terms of occupancy and lease revenue.

New Sudbury Centre and Intercity are pretty close in size but I think New Sudbury is a tiny bit bigger now after some recent expansions. Both malls lost their Sears stores of course and New Sudbury had a pretty big 2-floor Sears store.

[vid]

Intercity is the smallest major mall in Northern Ontario. Sault Ste. Marie and North Bay both have bigger malls (North Bay's is the biggest), and Sudbury's two main malls are both bigger. Intercity is hemmed in by a river, a railway, and two major roads, so it can't expand.

But when it comes to revenue and occupancy rates, I've heard it is the most occupied and most profitable mall property in Northern Ontario.

Intercity has a two storey Sears as well, and a second storey office area about a third of the way down the mall from Sears. There is potential for a two storey mall like Portage Place, the main hurdles will be engineering (is the north wing of the mall capable of supporting a second floor?) and parking, as the mall has an exemption from our parking by-laws (it should have about 400 more spaces than it currently does). I can see them building a small parkade at the north end to accommodate a partial second level.

[TbayON]

Morgard, the operators of Intercity Mall, appear to be quite bullish about the loss of Sears. It was really expected for quite some time (unlike the loss of Target, which happened fairly quickly), so I think the space was on the market unofficially for some time now. It will more than likely be broken up. A new entrance to the upper floor will be required to access whatever retailers move in upstairs. If I had to, my guesses for new tenants will be an outdoors store, an H&M and possibly a home décor store (to compete with the new Home Sense at the Thunder Centre).

Parking is a nightmare at Intercity around Christmas. Its going to be worse now that the parking at the Labour Centre is gone as the Lakehead Landing development moves along.

[vid]

The parking between Swiss Chalet and Whole Nine Yards is never full at Christmas, and I don't recall seeing many people park at the Labour Centre to go to the mall.

I'm pretty sure the escalators to the second level line up with the mall entrance so they could just extend the hall toward that and possibly right through to the north entrance.

[wave46]

Originally Posted by vid

Intercity is the smallest major mall in Northern Ontario. Sault Ste. Marie and North Bay both have bigger malls (North Bay's is the biggest), and Sudbury's two main malls are both bigger. Intercity is hemmed in by a river, a railway, and two major roads, so it can't expand.

But when it comes to revenue and occupancy rates, I've heard it is the most occupied and most profitable mall property in Northern Ontario.

I believe it. It has effectively no competition, it is located in the best spot (right smack between Fort William and Port Arthur) and pretty much all the retail big-box stores have chose to locate adjacent to it, drawing more customers in.

[ADLS]

Thunder Bay

Multi-family construction activity is picking up in the northward. An application has been submitted to construct a 6-story, 17 unit apartment (condo maybe) at 26 Nugent Street. The idea is quite good but the artist's concept of the building doesn't look that great. Hopefully it will be more interesting architecturally once its built!
The 3 storey apartment building behind Safeway on Court Street has come along way and will enjoy great views of the harbour. The DSSAB building on South Algoma is also almost fully enclosed now.

The 8-storey Delta Hotel on the waterfront is also moving along very quickly. They probably want to get it enclosed before winter sets in to continue with interior work. Still no news on the proposed transformation of the courthouse to a boutique hotel and no news on the Lyceum, which continues to deteriorate.

[Loco101]

Originally Posted by vid

Intercity is the smallest major mall in Northern Ontario. Sault Ste. Marie and North Bay both have bigger malls (North Bay's is the biggest), and Sudbury's two main malls are both bigger. Intercity is hemmed in by a river, a railway, and two major roads, so it can't expand.

But when it comes to revenue and occupancy rates, I've heard it is the most occupied and most profitable mall property in Northern Ontario.

Intercity has a two storey Sears as well, and a second storey office area about a third of the way down the mall from Sears. There is potential for a two storey mall like Portage Place, the main hurdles will be engineering (is the north wing of the mall capable of supporting a second floor?) and parking, as the mall has an exemption from our parking by-laws (it should have about 400 more spaces than it currently does). I can see them building a small parkade at the north end to accommodate a partial second level.

I wouldn't doubt that Intercity has the best occupancy rate. I really like that mall when I was last at it.

You are showing your influence from western Canada when you refer to it as a parkade!! I remember starting a thread on here about that a few years back. And T-Bay is the most eastern city that commonly uses "parkade." In Northeastern Ontario we say "parking garage" of course.