walmarts had that scheme a couple years now in BC, looks much better than the old colour scheme which anything they did was an improvement

Totally agree. The exterior paint job looks totally amateurish.

I can understand though why they didnt spend too much time working on the the old Topsail Road location as they don't own that building and are only leasing. It's still owned by Sobey's and the Empire Group. Not many people are going are shopping there though. I thought more people would shop there but the smaller floor space is really turning off customers.

Gonna make a retail prediction here in relation to the popularity of Walmart and Target and other department stores entering Canada. I predict that within several years Sears Canada will call it quits and shut down in Canada if not even North America. They are continually losing market share and sales during each quarter. They are already closing very prominent locations across Canada in larget markets like Vancouver and other large cities.

I would not be surprised at all if you see Target taking over many of the Sears locations throughout Canada as I am sure Sears got a lot of hot real estate that Target would love to have also. I can see Sears in the Avalon Mall becoming a Target at some point if my prediction comes true. Be nice to see a Hudson's Bay here though but not sure what their expansion plans if any are in the works since they unloaded Zellers to Target.

Does anybody know if any retail has been announced for Glencrest/Dannyland? For the last week, equipment has been working frantically to clear the area just off Ruth Avenue near the water tanks and the new Bell Aliant tower. They were working Sunday and now have flood lights set up for working at night. According to the Glencrest plans, this is the retail/commercial area of the development, not the Industrial area which is further west. I've seen no activity in the Industrial area, other than the signs.

Yes, I do know because my dad is working with the people incharge of the the retail there. I also know, but, I am not allowed to share it with anyone. All I can say is that there will be another Costco and Target.

that would be a great start!

St. John's has so many new suburban stores, but I feel I didn't miss anything by not going into a single one while visiting!
Yes, I know - they are for residents not for tourists ! ;)

Like all the other proposed rumours of stores, until we see an official announcement by the stores themselves, I will believe it when I see it. Costco has been rumoured for years to go in the west end. I honestly don't think St.John's needs two Costcos for the size of the population.

Have you ever been to costco in St. John's? I have never been there when it isn't busy. That is mostly the reason I don't go there often, and the fact I live with one other person and don't need that much stuff. I have heard that store does some of the highest sales chain-wide, specifically around Christmas. Also if you consider projected growth in the region, it may be needed even more in a few years from now.

Costco is blocked with people pretty much all the time, so much that I rarely go and always dread it. I'd like to see a second one built.

All Costco's are zoos all the time. It is an unwritten rule. :)

There are Costco's in Moncton, Freddy & Saint John. There are two Costco's in Halifax but Halifax has twice your population. I sincerely doubt that you will see a second store in St. John's, sorry......

EDIT - I just realized the discussion was about new retail in "Dannyland". This changes things a bit. This is a potentially huge development, and I'm sure that Danny Williams could make a good case to Costco to build a new location there. I still think 2 Costco's for 200k people is a bit much, but if somebody can talk Costco into doing this, it would be Danny Williams......

Greater Vancouver has 7 Costcos, only one is in the city, but that's about one per 350,000 for the metro. I think St. John's may have a higher demand per capita though.

I have to be honest I don't think it's too much at ALL .... lots of money floating around these parts and people come in across the province just to shop

If you consider metro area alone and 200K people, it may not seem like much. Like you said, people come from all over the province to shop as St. John's is the only real shopping destination in NL. So really stores in St. John's service a majority of the entire province for peoples shopping needs. I used to work with a guy that lived in Corner Brook and he would come in sometimes just to go drop $1,000 at Costco. Also, around Christmas it is common for families to drive into St. john's, stay with some relatives and do all their shopping in here.

Yeah and the fact that it is an island means that St. John's has a much larger than normal catchment area for retail, because the only alternative [other than online shopping of course] is to leave the island entirely.

Just to add to the growing discussion about Costco... St. John's retail is a very unique retail sector (as Kwajo mentioned) for a number of reasons, the biggest being we are an island and quite isolated from rest of the retail sector in Canada.

Retail in the St. John's is not limited to residents of the metro and surrounding area. Many people from Clarenville (approx 1.5 hours drive) east come to SJ on a regular basis to shop/dine/play etc. This actually pushes the catchment area up around 300,000+. As for Costco, this number is bigger since people from all over the island will come to shop, for both personal and business reasons. Someone from Corner Brook may only come in twice a year to shop at Costco but is very likely to drop a large sum of money. I have family from Central that come in with a large list of items to pick up at Costco for themselves and other family members and friends - further evidence to justify J_Murphy's claim... :) .

So is there large enough demand to justify another Costco on the island? On the surface is does seem so. But as Arrakis mentioned nothing is certain until we here it officially.

Supposedly Costco has been interested in setting up in central, either Grand Falls or Gander.

That would probably make more sense than another in St. John's...

Costco has had discussions with Gander and Grand Falls-Windsor town councils this year. If they do go into central it will be with a new format store for smaller markets, more or less a pilot project. They have been pretty good at cornering the market in larger centres and now they have to look at secondary markets which are smaller in order to keep growing.

Deer Lake also made a pitch to Costco but I think they ended up getting laughed out of the boardroom. The company was pretty clear about 10 years ago that if they go to the west coast it has to be in Corner Brook, they turned down a power centre development in Pasadena as well a while back because it was too far out.