Costco developer pitches downtown grocery store for Saskatoon
Plans also call for 'experiential retail lifestyle centre' and living space
Guy Quenneville · CBC News · Posted: Apr 05, 2018 11:19 AM CT | Last Updated: 3 minutes ago
Quote:
The same company that brought a second Costco to Saskatoon wants to build a "missing and much-needed" grocery store near the downtown core.
Vancouver-based Arbutus Properties has told city councillors it wants to start negotiating with the city to buy the "City Yards" property next door to Saskatoon Police Service headquarters.
The plan also includes "an experiential retail lifestyle centre, combined with urban residential and live/workspaces."
The area Arbutus has in mind is the "City Yards" land highlighted in blue in this map from the City of Saskatoon. (City of Saskatoon )
But it's the idea of a full-sized grocery store that gets the most ink in Arbutus' letter to councillors.
"[It's] vital to anchoring the north downtown and enhancing Saskatoon's core," the company wrote.
6-month timeline
Arbutus is the same company that developed the 350-acre Meadows residential development three kilometres from Boychuk Drive.
That development included Saskatoon's much-ballyhooed second Costco.
Arbutus says it wants six months to refine its plan for the 22-acre city yards, including potentially reusing certain "character buildings" on the site.
"It's a strategic reuse of a brownfield site with no tax base to its highest and best use," the company wrote.
'A case of when, not if'
Alex Fallon, the CEO of the Saskatoon Regional Economic Development Authority (SREDA), says the authority had been aware of interest in the property.
"[We] have always maintained its a case of when, not if, there is a grocery store to serve downtown," he said.
But a report released by SREDA last summer said not enough people live downtown to make a grocery store there economically feasible.
Several strikes against the downtown were cited: rent and real estate costs, "safety concerns," difficulty finding an appropriate site and a feared perception that a downtown location — due to its relatively smaller size — would not be seen as a "real" or "acceptable."
A new Save-on-Foods is set to open on Eighth Street this weekend. The busy strip is already home to several grocery stores.
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http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskat...tore-1.4606308
This is potentially huge. Arbutus Properties, one of the developers in Rosewood, is making a pitch to City Council to buy the City Yards outright and develop the North Downtown themselves.
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