Quote:
Originally Posted by J.OT13
That's quite disappointing. Common issue of rents being some ridiculously high that the store front remains empty for years, or in this case, converting it to a social room that I bet is mostly left unused. Seems the tuck shop, and the owner in particular, were far more valuable to the building occupants than what is there now.
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TLDR (and a bit more on topic): It is too hard to make a living as a convenience store in an apartment complex so I bet the store at the Azure will remain empty (or be an Aisle24). The social room conversion at my place is actually used so in general the outcome was best for here. I'm sure the Azure has better communal spaces for their tenants. I just hope they are able to create the sense of community that our complex has so they can make good use of the spaces. Here, our old tuck shop owner was key in developing over the years, something an Aisle24 or chain store will never do.
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To be fair the social room is used. There is a tenants' social group that tried to do things before the pandemic but could only do things in the lobbies (and two of the lobbies weren't well suited to that because people had to walk through the event to get to the elevator.)
Now, the room is used a lot. New tenants that moved in during the pandemic have organized stuff and the social group encourages this. Plus the residents' library the group had set up in the hall has been moved into the social room so there are people in there almost every day. There are weekly and monthly events in it and more starting all the time (hopefully winter covid spikes won't stifle this because it is great to see people using the space.)
BUT the seniors in particular miss the old tuck shop owner because he was so wonderful and catered to them. The younger people don't mind getting deliveries from InstaCart but the seniors note the markup in prices make things cost even more than buying from the tuck shop. And they could buy just a few things at a time.
That said, even with legalization (munchies!), and 1/3 of the tenants being seniors, I don't think a small shop could be profitable. His hours were really limited because it was just him working it. If he had opened longer into the evening, and earlier in the morning, he would have had to pay for staff and there's no way it would work under those conditions.
I used to live in Kars where the family-run general store served the community (which coincidentally had about the same number of households as this apartment complex.) Their profitability came from being the Canada Post outlet (and the draw of gas and cigarettes.) Even so, as their kids grew up and left home, they didn't hire any local teens, instead just worked longer hours because costs had to be kept as low as possible. It is now closed down, the business was for sale for over 10 years but no-one wanted to take it on. Eventually they closed and a gas station/convenience store was opened close to the highway interchange.
When the apartment complex switched to being non-smoking, that would have been the nail on the tuck shop's profits. The existing tenants were grandfathered so there are still smokers here, but I figure the sales from smokes were what kept the tuck shop worth running. Of course, the pandemic would have shut it down. In a way, pushed out or shut by the pandemic, the results would have been the same but at least the owner had a few years of working at something with a steadier income (he went to work for someone else) rather than struggling along and then being forced shut by Covid.
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