Quote:
Originally Posted by someone123
When the Apple Store opened up in HSC, it came out that one of their shortlisted retail sites was on Spring Garden Road. One of the factors mentioned by the potential SGR landlord was that there just weren't any quality retail spaces available along the street. Everything was small/cut up and/or outdated; think of Mills, the old Winsby's building, etc. The Doyle Block development is controversial because of associated heritage demolition, which I agree is bad, but I wonder if Apple wouldn't have chosen a building like that had it been available a few years back. The Roy Building similarly looks like it's going to have some great retail space that I could actually imagine a major chain leasing out.
As an aside, one of the counter-intuitive things is how long it takes for construction to have a positive impact on an area. It feels exciting to have cranes up everywhere but from the perspective of retailers the construction period itself is negative. Even after the buildings are finished the disruption is mostly done but it can take a while for all the units to fill up (Vancouver had this with the Olympic Village, which was meant to be completed for 2010 and is just now starting to feel like a real neighbourhood). I think we'll only be able to accurately assess the impact of this current round of construction in 2018 or so. I can't help but think that it will have a significant net positive impact but some older parts of the urban core may "move downmarket".
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I always thought the old HMV space was perfect for the Apple store. Certainly was bigger and more attractive than the boring block in the HSC.
Apple also seems to traditionally have its flagship shops downtown. Very sad that ours ended up in mall. At least it's well serviced by transit...