Quote:
Originally Posted by bingun
I know everyone wants a grocery store, but I just don't know if it's realistic with the current population density. A grocery store with limited parking is one thing, but one with no parking is another. I guess there are a few spots outside on King Street or on King's Square. It also has to compete with the city market next door.
Are there any comparable grocery stores in similar locations in other maritime cities? Victory in Fredericton is downtown, but I don't think that is a good comparison.
If it is not a grocery store, then I am unsure. It feels like too big a space for a restaurant or consumer retail.
We've seen the retail space at Fundy Quay advertised, but nothing for 99 King. Do we think that means it has already been accounted for, or is that still to come?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sailor734
Good point about parking issues. Unless you shop everyday grocery stores are one type of retail that really does require close, convenient parking.
The"urban" grocery stores I'm familiar with are built on top of underground parking. One I've been in (Urban Fare in Vancouver's Yaletown) even has a moving sidewalk type escalator to let you take the shopping carts down to the garage level. The carts have a function that locks the wheels when on the ramp and unlocks them at the bottom....ingenious.
Even the downtown Costco in Vancouver has a similar setup.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by OliverD
When I worked in downtown Fredericton I'd frequently stop at Victory after work and left my car where I parked it at the office. Super convenient. I think a lot of people do that.
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How many more people do we need living in the Uptown core for a grocery store to be viable at 99 King? Moreover, how many of the people living in the core of the Central Peninsula would actually be worried about driving to and parking at this hypothetical grocery store at the top of King?
I thought the whole point of calling for a grocery store to open in Uptown Saint John was to give people an option to buy groceries
without having to drive a car and deal with parking hassles.
I can't imagine many of the residents and visitors of Uptown Saint John with cars would be driving to this grocery store with their cars very often, when it would be close enough to walk, ride a bike, or take a very, very short bus ride.
It's simply foolish to try and believably market Uptown Saint John as one of the most highly walkable places to live in Atlantic Canada when it doesn't even have a single grocery store. Trying to overcomplicate this issue in terms of market economics, demographics, and now parking is just needlessly negative analysis, when all that really matters is the execution of a simple, common sense business idea that people in Saint John (the market) have long been calling for.
That business idea, of course, is an Uptown grocery store that caters to the residents and visitors of the area, many of whom are car-less. Taking the bus to and from the grocery store (and picking up a lot) would be viable for most residents of Uptown Saint John, especially couples. Even one person can schlep a huge order of groceries by themselves on the bus if there’s a bus stop even semi-near home. I used to bring quite large loads of groceries home on public transportation when I used to live in a city with light rail and a subway, but I’d mostly just walk to the grocery store in the basement of the mall beside my apartment. That’s how you really stop yourself from buying too much and stocking up too much… having to carry your groceries all the way home.
While an Uptown store would obviously cater to people with cars, it's not like there is
no parking around 99 King. There is on street parking all around it, and Brunswick Square Parking Garage basically right there. There's a huge amount of people that work Uptown and already have parking nearby 99 King (including @ Brunswick Square's Parkade) that would likely frequent a grocery store at 99 King to pick up some stuff for dinner after work, without having to drive somewhere else in SJ or KV on their commute back home. A huge number of the parking spots in Uptown Saint John are occupied by people that work Uptown, but live in the suburbs.
There's a tremendous value proposition in an Uptown Grocery store for the many suburban workers of Uptown Saint of Saint John, as it would be a place they could walk to after work that would enable them to drive straight home.
Living in KV and working in SJ remains an aspiration for many people here in the Saint John Region, but maybe the next, great status symbol will be showing up at home with some groceries in a paper bag from the grocery store at 99 King:
Whole Foods might not be a popular choice at the moment, given the continued tensions with the US, but I only picked that photo because it's the most emblematic image of a paper grocery bag as a status symbol. 99 King shouldn't even have to try and convince a major Canadian chain to open up shop on their first floor, when it's an opportunity for a locally owned small business to fill a niche that the Saint John market has long been calling for.
Again, it's hard for Uptown Saint John to believably call itself "one of the most walkable neighbourhoods in Atlantic Canada" when it doesn't even have a grocery store. For someone in Saint John that works from home or works nearby home, the West Side's Aquarius "Tower" on Fairville Boulevard is a more "walkable" location than 99 King will be (unless it
does get a grocery store).
Yet, even though Fairville Boulevard could technically be seen as a more walkable location than King Street is today, the Fairville shopping area has very poor urban fabric, unlike Uptown Saint John, which undeniably has some of the finest urban fabric to be seen and experienced in the country.
Walking to a grocery store at 99 King and back home to Orange Street could be a very pleasant experience, and part of that pleasant experience would be not having to walk through large, busy parking lots like is the case with all the other grocery stores in this city.
Zohran Mamdani made big promises about urban grocery stores and now he's mayor of New York. Maybe the next mayor of Saint John could get into office by running on a platform that includes a promise to work on bringing an urban grocery store to 99 King... and also promise to push for a bylaw that outlaws "upside down dresser legs" on the top of buildings!
I'd likely vote for that kind of candidate, even if I'm not a resident of Uptown myself.
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Could a grocery store/ convenience store thrive at 99 King? w/o a huge parking lot?
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