Downtown Grocery Stores

[megadude]

Agree that Roncy isn't downtown. But yes, as pointed out, people from outside TO might easily say they're going downtown when they're actually just going to High Park or wherever.

My wife's family doctor is in Roncy as she's Polish. She has never once said she has to go to Roncy or west end for an appt. She says I have to go to a doctor's appt. downtown.

And ya, Bathurst seems like the most sensible cutoff for where downtown ends.

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by megadude

Agree that Roncy isn't downtown. But yes, as pointed out, people from outside TO might easily say they're going downtown when they're actually just going to High Park or wherever.

The same people that say they're from Toronto when they're really from Markham or Brampton or Ajax.

[urbandreamer]

It's like saying MCC is downtown when really downtown Mississauga would be Port Credit. What about Yonge and Eglinton?

[Andy6]

Originally Posted by jamincan

I live in the suburbs and I have a full-size supermarket, a discount supermarket, a Walmart with a partial grocery section and an M&M's frozen food store within a conservative 10-minute walk. I also have an excellent local bakery and small-format grocery within less than 5-minutes, and I don't think my situation is *that* unusual within KW.

It seems to me that a lot of shopping options are available within walking distance of most of suburban housing. The problem, however, is that cars are convenient and easy to use and walking or biking infrastructure is often unpleasant or even hostile to users.

Yes, in our ordinary and very humble suburb in Winnipeg, I can walk to the IGA (whatever it’s called now; it was Safeway when I was young), the Red River Co-Op (ex-much bigger circa 1980 Safeway), a terrific butcher, M&M, bakery, liquor store etc. within 10-12 minutes (not to mention Wal-Mart). It’s just that the walk takes me across four-lane suburban roads and into strip malls. I imagine urbanists just don’t appreciate the homely appearance, but the neighbourly character and food options are all there if you’re willing to cast aside certain prejudices and stereotypes.

[kwoldtimer]

WRC reports that Kitchener will be getting a new downtown grocery store, Marcheleo’s. It will be located on the ground floor of the former Eatons, now Eaton Lofts condo. Good news for DTK.

Anybody know Marcheleo’s in Toronto? I’m wondering what it’s like.

[urbandreamer]

Looks like a smaller Vincenzos? What downtown Kitchener needs is a No Frills.

[ssiguy]

^^^ This what is meant as "food mirages".

It's great that KW is getting a speciality food store and shows confidence in the downtown and where it is headed. It is, however, not a true grocery store that offers AFFORDABLE and a large selection of groceries that the average person both needs and can afford.

[Andy6]

If there's a significant untapped (and presumably profitable) market out there that grocery chains are somehow entirely failing to see, then maybe it's time for SSPers to invest their collective resources in developing a European-style downtown grocery chain that charges the same for its products as suburban hypermarkets.

[SpongeG]

ALDI has expressed interest in opening stores in Canada, that would be interesting.

LIDL their other brand had even set up an office in Mississauga but pulled out of Canada.
Fingers crossed it comes back.

https://www.retail-insider.com/retai...di-lidl-canada

[acottawa]

The economics of groceries are totally different in Europe: large subsidies from the EU, long growing seasons, highly-developed transport networks, appalling migrant labour conditions and pay. I don't think the European discounters would be able to profitably replicate their model, which is probably why they are not here.

[speedog]

Originally Posted by Andy6

If there's a significant untapped (and presumably profitable) market out there that grocery chains are somehow entirely failing to see, then maybe it's time for SSPers to invest their collective resources in developing a European-style downtown grocery chain that charges the same for its products as suburban hypermarkets.

Is there though? This partially comes down to one's definition of downtown (see mine versus Chadillac's definitions of downtown Calgary) which in one case has had two major chains located downtown for decades but in the other case only recently has one major chain opened up downtown.

Regardless of all of that and one's definition of what downtown Calgary is, the urban dwellers there now have three big box grocer options plus numerous more niche offerings as well. Knowing that, I do not see an European-style grocery chain being viable or able to survive with competitive pricing to the 3 big box grocer players out here (Loblaws, Sobeys and Coop) unless the interested SSPers are willing to subsidize such an operation through their investment which would be more than just buying their groceries there.

[Taeolas]

I'd say Fredericton is pretty well served.

The Superstore is outside of the downtown core, but still in a trivial walking distance.

There's a Sobeys on the other end of the core, just outside but still a trivial walking distance (both are on the valley floor so you aren't climbing the hill). The Sobeys is also basically at the bottom of the Universities, so it serves the campus population well.

Within the core, Victory Meat Market has been there forever and a day, and still going strong. We also have a number of more niche specialty food markets scattered throughout the downtown core.

There's a Medicine Shoppe just next to Victory now, and Shoppers Drug Mart has a store right in downtown in the Kings Place mall/transit hub.

And of course, the big farmers market is every Saturday morning right at the edge of Downtown.


I don't know Saint John well, but I've heard many times that it desperately needs a downtown grocer. Looking at Google Maps, the selection seems VERY sparse. If any city qualifies as a Food Desert, Saint John might be the one.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

^^^ This what is meant as "food mirages".

It's great that KW is getting a speciality food store and shows confidence in the downtown and where it is headed. It is, however, not a true grocery store that offers AFFORDABLE and a large selection of groceries that the average person both needs and can afford.

Is it a "specialty" store? I thought it was just a small grocery store.

[SkeggsEggs]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

Is it a "specialty" store? I thought it was just a small grocery store.

It seems like just a small grocery store, though definitely high brow. Their frozen pizza for example run $3 more than at Superstore and $2 more than at Metro. So unfortunately it probably won't be too affordable, but atleast it's progress!

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Taeolas

I don't know Saint John well, but I've heard many times that it desperately needs a downtown grocer. Looking at Google Maps, the selection seems VERY sparse. If any city qualifies as a Food Desert, Saint John might be the one.

People tend to focus on the well-preserved Victorian architecture in SJ which is nice and, I think, should be preserved, but they tend not to talk about the flip side which is the overall low population and business density and low demand for things like grocery stores. An old Victorian block that would have had 30 buildings packed with 8 people per unit in 1880 ends up with 20 buildings with 3 people each in 2020. Then you add in cars and a propensity to drive to get groceries a couple times a week and there's not much demand for the local urban grocers anymore.

The Main Street area was also nearly totally wiped out by urban renewal. One side of the downtown which used to have residents is now mostly highways and related development.

I'm not sure it would have been preferable but if a bunch of 70's residential towers or modern condos had been built the population today would be much higher and there would be more businesses.

I think there is a happy medium that involves building higher density on empty lots and adaptive reuse and some of that is happening in SJ.

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by someone123

People tend to focus on the well-preserved Victorian architecture in SJ which is nice and, I think, should be preserved, but they tend not to talk about the flip side which is the overall low population and business density and low demand for things like grocery stores.

Indeed. Uptown SJ will be getting a good boost in direct residents in the near future with four multi-dwelling buildings currently going up, and local population in the urban core increased from 2011 to 2016. There'll be a few hundred more Uptown residents in the coming years just from new builds alone.

The City Market acts as a grocer for a good part of the population but it's not enough to fully sustain the entire neighbourhood.

Originally Posted by someone123

The Main Street area was also nearly totally wiped out by urban renewal. One side of the downtown which used to have residents is now mostly highways and related development.

RIP North End. Although they're great facilities, Market Square and the Aquatic Centre both removed a large swath of building stock from the local area in the 70s and 80s, as well.

Originally Posted by someone123

I think there is a happy medium that involves building higher density on empty lots and adaptive reuse and some of that is happening in SJ. I think the city will do much better around the 2020-2050 timeframe than it did around 1990-2020.

There's been a lot of infill currently ongoing in the Uptown which is very good to see after years of decline and neglect. One thing that happened before the new builds was the renovation and refurbishment of a lot of existing properties - SJ had a ton of effectively empty buildings in the Uptown, many of which have since been updated and are currently in-use. Uptown's relative rejuvenation in the past decade cannot be understated.

The difficulty for a grocery store in this neighbourhood is the lack of available land and heritage preservation of most of the area. It's very difficult to just build a standard big box grocery store but also not feasible to build an urban-style store at this time (like, say, an urban/City Market Loblaws or Sobeys' urban formats). Once Uptown reaches a certain population threshold it'll happen organically eventually...one rumour that always floats around is the third floor of Brunswick Square being converted to grocery, which makes me more and more curious with each tenant that leaves that mall.

[Acajack]

Downtown Saint John seems to have followed the classic North American downtown evolutionary pattern. (Which is not a good one.)

Other Maritime cities like Halifax and Charlottetown seem to have escaped the downward spiral and are fairly exceptional in a continental context.

[someone123]

Saint John reminds me of say Windsor ON in that it's somewhere in between American norms and nearby regional Canadian norms for urban development. SJ is one of the most American-style cities in Canada with its freeway running through the core, emphasis on heritage preservation in certain neighbourhoods, and relative lack of postwar high density residential buildings. I don't say that as an insult; it's got its pluses and minuses.

I have always considered Halifax and Charlottetown to be much more similar in style.

I don't know how much this really matters but Saint John was settled mostly by Loyalists who moved from the US while Halifax and Charlottetown were mostly settlers from Europe. And NB followed the common American pattern of separating the commercial hub from the capital.

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by someone123

Saint John reminds me of say Windsor ON in that it's somewhere in between American norms and nearby regional Canadian norms for urban development. SJ is one of the most American-style cities in Canada with its freeway running through the core, emphasis on heritage preservation in certain neighbourhoods, and relative lack of postwar high density residential buildings. I don't say that as an insult (some people are very anti-American); it's got its pluses and minuses.

...

I don't know how much this really matters but Saint John was settled mostly by Loyalists who moved from the US while Halifax and Charlottetown were mostly settlers from Europe. And NB followed the common American pattern of separating the commercial hub from the capital while NS and PEI were modeled after mini European capitals.

Based on history and local makeup it's sometimes better to group Saint John in with Portland ME, Boston, Portsmouth NH than with other Canadian Maritime cities.

The Maritimes in Canada very much refers to NB/PEI/NS but i've heard on more than one occasion the Maritimes also being used to reference the Boston-Portsmouth-Portland-Saint John corridor before (IE, 'Boston being the largest Maritime city', etc.) A lot of this connotation would come down to pre-Confederation timelines and doesn't hold much water today.

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Downtown Saint John seems to have followed the classic North American downtown evolutionary pattern. (Which is not a good one.)

Other Maritime cities like Halifax and Charlottetown seem to have escaped the downward spiral and are fairly exceptional in a continental context.

Saint John also suffers from the fact that there's only so much money to go around in New Brunswick, and it's much more concentrated in Moncton and Fredericton. if Saint John were the urban centre in the province, it would probably be on the upswing, but it's not.

It's also very American in that what money does exist there concentrates in tony suburbs outside of the city's tax base (Rothesay and Quispamsis). Without Saint John, those suburbs wouldn't exist, but they contribute little financially to the city itself. I can't think of any other city in Canada, large or small, that has quite that stark a divide between urban poverty and suburban wealth.