North America's "most unique" Costco opens in Vancouver

[The Chemist]

Originally Posted by miketoronto

The reason we still have great food markets along our inner city strips, is because we have been able to maintain the "real" city lifestyle.

Other cities no longer have this, because they have sold out to the chain stores and COSTCO'S.

Downtown Living is not COSTCO.

Why should urbanites be denied the ability to shop for low prices at Costco just because they live downtown? If there's a market in downtown Vancouver for a Costco, then build one. At least they've done it in an urban-friendly way, and that is commendable. And this way, urbanites who want to shop at Costco (best place to shop for electronics, BTW) don't have to drive their cars out to the suburbs to get what they want.

[arbeiter]

Originally Posted by miketoronto

The reason we still have great food markets along our inner city strips, is because we have been able to maintain the "real" city lifestyle.

This is the most convoluted sentence. I've reread it like six times and it still doesn't make a lick of sense.

At least Costco pays above minimum wage and offers decent benefits. There are worse corporate citizens to harass. Besides, nobody I know who would live in a False Creek condomimum would dare wear Kirkland Signature jeans.

[The Chemist]

Originally Posted by arbeiter

Besides, nobody I know who would live in a False Creek condomimum would dare wear Kirkland Signature jeans.

Why not? They're cheap ($18 a pair) and they're good quality. Heck, they're even made in Canada, not some third world sweatshop. Unless you think that a brandname is worth $70-$100 a pair or more, Kirkland jeans are great.

[arbeiter]

Originally Posted by The Chemist

Why not? They're cheap ($18 a pair) and they're good quality. Heck, they're even made in Canada, not some third world sweatshop. Unless you think that a brandname is worth $70-$100 a pair or more, Kirkland jeans are great.

Well... they're not bad if you're comparing them to Target or Wal*Mart jeans.
It's about the fit and design that make people pay more. Kirkland jeans just don't look like my Acne Jeans.

[SHOFEAR]

Mike, you have still failed to explain how this is any different than Eatons, The Bay, or any other department store you have a hard-on for.

[mhays]

I agree with Arbeiter. Costco at least pays better than many other retailers, especially Wal-Mart, where nearly every employee is in the "working poor". Costco's products aren't sold purely on price, causing jobs to be shipped off to the lowest-pay places; rather they try to have decent quality in whatever they sell.

As for Kirkland jeans, I've never heard of them, but I assume they're named after Kirkland, Washington, which is a prosperous inner Seattle suburb with a fairly decent center, next to Lake Washington. When Costco was a smaller company it might have picked a name that had a good connotation with locals.

[arbeiter]

Originally Posted by mhays

As for Kirkland jeans, I've never heard of them, but I assume they're named after Kirkland, Washington, which is a prosperous inner Seattle suburb with a fairly decent center, next to Lake Washington. When Costco was a smaller company it might have picked a name that had a good connotation with locals.

Costco's 'own brand' is Kirkland Signature. There are Kirkland Signature AA batteries, orange juice, jeans, you name it. It's like President's Choice or something like that. But yeah it probably was named after the city.

[Frisco_Zig]

but we all know that COSTCO is just WALMART in sheep's clothing

Costco is union and pays much higher wages than Walmart. That alone makes them not close to the same. $17 per hour is an excellent salary to many in inner cities

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/17/busine...dxnnlx=1121705296-Q4tqPzmKJ9sYl9Q2a0xDYA

[Frisco_Zig]

Also to add to this debate; I am not sure how large cities like toronto may function but in the fractured urban areas of the Bay Area there is always big box retailers lining up at the very next border attracting business (Oakland's Emerville and SF has Daly City and Coloma) The Home Depot in Colma is one of the busiest in the nation I believe. It is clear, at least where I live, that the majority of people want to shop at these stores and don't agree with you

We have had some rather silly political fights in SF over a proposed a Home Depot in a very depressed area (site of an abandoned lumber store) It seems for many leaving the site blighted for another few decades is preferable to submitting to the evil Home Depot. Better to have everyone just drive to Colma and we will pretend it isn't reality

[crooked rain]

Originally Posted by The Chemist

Why should urbanites be denied the ability to shop for low prices at Costco just because they live downtown? If there's a market in downtown Vancouver for a Costco, then build one. At least they've done it in an urban-friendly way, and that is commendable. And this way, urbanites who want to shop at Costco (best place to shop for electronics, BTW) don't have to drive their cars out to the suburbs to get what they want.

This is the most sensible post of the whole thread.

The Costco in Vancouver is nicely tucked away near the stadium and under a viaduct. No other business would open in such a location and it blends into the environment that surrounds it.

Why shouldn't residents of downtown Vancouver, who already have one of the highest costs of living in Canada, have a well thought out, non-sprawling discount store to shop at? Should they forever be forced to pay high prices just because the live downtown? Should the T&T Supermarket 2 blocks away be forced out of downtown as well, because it is a chain store whose cheap groceries threaten mom and pop grocers? Sometimes this forum is a bastion of idiocy.

[vanman]

Originally Posted by crooked rain

This is the most sensible post of the whole thread.

The Costco in Vancouver is nicely tucked away near the stadium and under a viaduct. No other business would open in such a location and it blends into the environment that surrounds it.

Why shouldn't residents of downtown Vancouver, who already have one of the highest costs of living in Canada, have a well thought out, non-sprawling discount store to shop at? Should they forever be forced to pay high prices just because the live downtown? Should the T&T Supermarket 2 blocks away be forced out of downtown as well, because it is a chain store whose cheap groceries threaten mom and pop grocers? Sometimes this forum is a bastion of idiocy.

I agree with you completely

[slide_rule]

in many markets, the distribution chain is unfriendly to smaller scale grocery operations. vertical integration allowed the large chains to shut out their competitors. the banks are also leery about lending to independent grocers. all this results in poorer quality and higher prices in the small stores. the larger canadian cities are lucky in this regard.

not that i agree completely with mike, but small mom and pop groceries do have their advantages. these stores have traditionally given cash-poor but ambitious immigrants the chance to ascend the economic ladder. selling groceries may seem like an innocuous job, but grocery owners have to master cashflow, bookkeeping, merchandising, purchasing, etc., and they could pocket the profits at the end of the day. minimum wage jobs at 7-11, or even relatively high-paying jobs at costco do not offer these benefits.

as for kirkland jeans, they're really not that bad. and if people get uppity about a 'practical' pair of jeans, it says something about their own mentality.

[miketoronto]

The problem is all the people moving into our downtowns now are from the suburbs, and they want the suburban lifestyle transplanted into downtown for them downtown.

The old time downtown residents are the ones that actually understood what the central city is all about, and supporting local business, and unique neighbourhoods.

And if you are a downtown dweller who has no time to stroll around and must shop at COSTCO, then you have to rethink your life in the first place as to why you don't have time. Maybe its time to slow down.

Anyways if our downtowns keep up this suburbanization, soon the very attraction of downtown itself will be gone, and it will no longer be a special place to live, because it will just be a high-rise suburb.

We have already let Starbucks take over our city centres. Try finding a unique cafe anymore in downtown Toronto or Vancouver.

Now we are letting COSTCO and other big boxes kill off what is left of a true city.

[SpongeG]

as a single person who used to shop at costco i can say i mainly bought DVD's, books, Magazines and non-food things

buying the food stuff was a waste usually since i never needed so much - but its not all in big huge amounts - you can get 4l of milk, 1 dozen eggs, 1 loaf of bread, etc.

if you shop smart you can get what you want there

[SpongeG]

Originally Posted by miketoronto

The problem is all the people moving into our downtowns now are from the suburbs, and they want the suburban lifestyle transplanted into downtown for them downtown.

The old time downtown residents are the ones that actually understood what the central city is all about, and supporting local business, and unique neighbourhoods.

And if you are a downtown dweller who has no time to stroll around and must shop at COSTCO, then you have to rethink your life in the first place as to why you don't have time. Maybe its time to slow down.

Anyways if our downtowns keep up this suburbanization, soon the very attraction of downtown itself will be gone, and it will no longer be a special place to live, because it will just be a high-rise suburb.

We have already let Starbucks take over our city centres. Try finding a unique cafe anymore in downtown Toronto or Vancouver.

Now we are letting COSTCO and other big boxes kill off what is left of a true city.

whose to say big box aren't the new true city?

things change - i am sure 100 years ago people freaked out that there was one store that sold everything under one roof - as opposed to going here for the meat, there for the bread, there for the cheese etc.

the people moving downtown are from the suburbs anyway - they want what they had out in the burbs

[seapug]

costco and walmart are nothing alike. i don't see why having a costco downtown is so terrible. yeah if it was just a complete undereutilization of space with 250 surface spots or whatever. i live in queen anne a neighborhood on the edge of downtown seattle. i shop at a "big box" grocer it has 3 levels of condos on top and no surface parking. myself and most of the people i know in the area walk there to do their grocery shopping and spend as little as possible so they can afford to go out more often. i think it's a good thing people can spend less on groceries and afford more movies or nights out every week

[miketoronto]

North America's just don't know how to live. Everything is about being cheap, as big as you can get, etc.

And the Costcoization of our downtowns is showing how low North America is going in city building.

Who says Costco is cheaper anyway? Its the same with Wal-Mart. I have a friend who shops there and just assumes the prices are cheaper. I have gone in with her(forced to go in) and found the prices were either the same or more expensive then other stores in the city.

[SFUVancouver]

The downtown Vancouver Costco should be considered from a number of different perspectives.

1. A Challenging Site. The site of the new Costco is very difficult to build in. It is at the bottom of a fifty to seventy-five foot escarpment with pseudo highway elevated viaducts on either side, a fledgling arterial road snaking beneath the viaducts and then fully enclosed for a block or more under part of a 50K seat stadium. Directly across the street from the Costco is a 17K seat stadium. There is a major SkyTrain (regional elevated automated metro system) station adjacent one of the two viaducts. Quite simply, this was a wasted site that sat derelict for at least twenty years and housed a rail yard and sawmills before that, stretching back to the founding of Vancouver in 1886.

2. Built Form. In my opinion, a mixed-use structure that responds to two very different elevations and a generally lousy site is brilliant. The lower Expo Blvd elevation provides pedestrian and vehicular access to Costco, which is sandwiched between two layers of underground Costco parking and two levels of residential parking above it. On top of this is a major, 900+ unit residential development consisting of four towers of 27 to 31 storeys and several dozen townhouses. Let me emphasize again: this was wasted space. It now contains a significant number of residential units, which because of their limited size are marginally more affordable than other offerings in the area, and a useful big box retail store that is aesthetically very different from its suburban siblings.
As for neighbourhood character; this part of Vancouver is being created anew and is seeing its second major wave of development around the International Village precinct. The site of the Costco and Spectrum condos above is a textbook example of urban brown field development.

3. Land Use. Downtown Vancouver has seen its population increase by more than 40,000 people in the last decade and grocery stores, corner stores, etc. have not kept pace with the influx. This is due to poor planning, the high cost of retail space, and the profitability of Vancouver Model of tower/townhouse podium that eschews retail at grade. Several grocery stores and pharmacies have been added with more to come. Large format retailers like Costco are a fact of life at this point and I think the City should be commended for offering a thoroughly benign urban alternative, reducing the number of trips across the city to suburban or highway-oriented retail.

Large format department stores are thriving along side smaller boutique retail in Vancouver. The single largest reason in my mind that downtown street level retail began to decline was the development of Pacific Centre Mall. This spawned additional below grade malls throughout the downtown core and robbed the formerly thriving Granville shopping district of street-level pedestrians. The elimination of the street cars in the 50s and the piss-poor job buses have done since have also severely reduced the number of casual shoppers that would formerly have come into the core to shop.

Overall, the jury is still out on exactly how many trips to the suburbs the downtown Costco will absorb. I think it will absorb a great number and draw people into the core for multi-stop shopping trips. The Costco's adjacency to a mass transit station is promising, as have been the design of the store's support for pedestrian access with a large elevator and staircase to the street grade at the top of the escarpment.

[BlackRedGold]

Originally Posted by Frisco_Zig

Costco is union and pays much higher wages than Walmart.

Costco isn't completely union but the stores that aren't union probably have more to do with how fair they treat their employees instead of how they scare their employees from talking to a union.

[BlackRedGold]

Originally Posted by miketoronto

North America's just don't know how to live. Everything is about being cheap, as big as you can get, etc.

As opposed to your beloved Italy where everything is about tax evasion.

And the Costcoization of our downtowns is showing how low North America is going in city building.

Would you like Costco better if they put in pretty window displays that you like to longingly gaze at while you do the five knuckle pocket shuffle?

Who says Costco is cheaper anyway?

It isn't cheaper for everything but it is competitive at everything. Their return policy is the best around. Their goods are high quality often carrying high quality goods that can't be found anywhere else nearby.

Its the same with Wal-Mart. I have a friend who shops there and just assumes the prices are cheaper. I have gone in with her(forced to go in) and found the prices were either the same or more expensive then other stores in the city.

So because you've gone to Wal-Mart you're now an expert on Costco? OK.

Here's a challenge for you. Sneak into Costco and find the prices on these items: Balderson Cheddar, 4L bag of milk, Tropicana OJ, a pound of butter, rotisserie-cooked whole chicken and hot italian sausage. Then try and find better prices on these items elsewhere.