Photo from Wellington on the weekend:

https://i.imgur.com/SprNHic.png
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Good to see the way KiWi and 1 Jarvis relate to eachother and the international village streetscape as this one tops out.

https://i.imgur.com/9Iv2K3K.png
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These two buildings combined will be a huge boost for the international village. There will be about 1,000 people living in the two buildings.

I've really noticed the increased foot traffic around the new buildings downtown, every time I go by Platinum Condos or 154 Main there are a few pedestrians going to and from. Gets me excited for what all the current construction sites will do for the downtown as a whole in a few years with thousands of new people living downtown.

It's especially nice seeing more development on the North-South corridors :tup:

I'm still really surprised that despite all of these new residents (we're looking at literally a few thousand more in the next two years), there is still no one proposing a new grocery store in the core. You'd think Loblaw/Longos/Sobeys would be jumping at the opportunity to meet the demand.

This really stumps me at this point. A few years back I figured that once developments started getting occupancies, a grocery chain would set up shop. But nothing so far.
How many new developments need to go up and how many new residents downtown until a chain finally sees the opportunity?

What are the options now? The one inside Jackson Square (I'm assuming it's still opened?) and then some shops on James North?

Yeah and you should see the massive lineups inside Nations all day long (that's the one in Jackson Square).

Corktown would be perfectly suited for a medium sized grocery store somewhere. I was surprised when Corktown Condos opted not to integrate a mid sized commercial space for a grocery store.

I think grocery stores still prefer to be in suburban areas. Gonna take a while for that trend to shift - I think everyone's kinda waiting with held breath to see if all of this "change" actually amounts to dollar signs.

But I think once the ball starts rolling it will start to roll exponentially - just give it time.

You would think they would prefer to be in areas that make them money - regardless of where it is.

I have to believe there's a tipping point where they all can't just ignore the number of residents in the area... and I have to believe that if we're not at the point yet - we will be VERY soon.

urban format grocery stores are far more expensive to construct so have to do really robust business to pencil out.

The wider downtown is generally already full of grocery stores, It's just that other than Nations they are all on the periphery of downtown (No Frills on Main East, Food Basics on Barton, Fortinos on Dundurn), so those brands likely don't see a market downtown as it would cannibalize sales from their existing retailers, which have lower overheads than a new-build urban format store would.

The only major grocer player not downtown right now is Sobeys (FreshCo) - who is growing their retail presence in Ontario right now as well. If I had to take a bet on who the next entrant would be, I would bet on an urban-format Farm Boy on the west end of Downtown or a FreshCo. Likely a Farm Boy as there is currently only one Farm Boy in all of Hamilton and Sobeys is busy rapidly expanding the brand right now.

If Bental Green Oak had a decent brain on their heads they would be looking for a grocer tenant in their 3 tower project beside Hess Village. It's on the higher income side of downtown, close to a lot of existing residents and far from existing grocers (other than Nations), on a major arterial, and is a large site which is needed to make grocery store tenants work (cheaper parking, large floorplates, etc.). They aren't though.. so we keep waiting.

I'd be surprised if the major chains aren't sniffing around. But it's probably a bit early for them to make that jump. The cost of land alone will be steep.

They'll want to know with some accuracy how much disposable income there may be, because that will also determine the branding (No Frills or Food Basics for example, vs. Metro, vs. Fortinos or Sobeys)

I think the most likely scenario is smaller-format stores taking up retail space in podiums. I can see that happening somewhere along John St. S, and Main or King between Queen and Bay. And quite right the ones with stores nearby won't want to open something that will bite into their incumbent's trade area.

The growth on the east side could also lead to Denninger's upgrading their operation to include more foods (and they have a fairly large parking lot to work with). Their newest store in Burlington has a lot more "non-specialty" products than the older smaller ones.

With talks of shop lifting and people seemingly encouraging it in other online forums I’m not surprised grocers aren’t jumping to build a new store in the core.

Also I’d imagine construction of the LRT doesn’t encourage new businesses of that scale just yet.

Not true - Metro is in the east end of hamilton. I don't really consider the east end "downtown"..

Maybe if they stopped giving their ceos gargantuan raises and paid their employees a bit more they could lower their profit on food prices so people wouldn't need to shoplift...

Sure but repeated shoplifting will see increased presence of security, increased prices, and possibly closures.

Two wrongs don’t make a right. You know me chron, I always err on the side of morality.

True enough, hopefully we resolve this mess at some point..

Video on Instagram about installation of the window wall: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CoNIu...d=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

Nice video, timing seems to be lining up perfectly to move the cranes down the street to the Design District.

I wonder if that's where the Design District starting date is coming from. The cranes have their logo, so they may own them, and so they may literally be moving them down the street.

Metro owns Food Basics, so they do have a downtown presence through that.