Winnipeg Retail

[CoryB]

Originally Posted by The Unknown Poster

Best Buy Pembina is a waste. Firstly, nothing changed but the colour of the employees shirts.

I am not surprised that little changed with the conversion from Future Shop to Best Buy. An important, but invisible, change though is staff are all salaried now instead of the previous commission model Future Shop used. This means the old adage of looking at something expensive to grab staff attention won't work in quite the same way.

I would expect that Best Buy has a plan to change the signage and colours of the stores. If major appliances being rolled out to Best Buy in Canada now I would expect that occurring in existing stores to be the first wave of changes. The second wave will likely be to change the outdoor signage to the Best Buy brand but that could depend on if they are going to renovate to the Best Buy look of keep the external changes minimal. The interior changes will likely me slower to happen and could be based on historical store performance with high revenue stores being changes sooner.

--

Separately I was reading comments from Shindico on the Polo Park Target site. Unfortunately I lost the link but they directly talked to Lowes moving into that location and said it was not possible for a number of reasons. In addition to the garden center and lumber yard we previously discussed they mentioned the floor loads at the Target site are lower than what that type of store would need. They did indicate it was a strong possibility for the other Winnipeg locations. Just the whole tone of it sounded like they had done some due diligence on the possibility. It would also not be surprising that if Lowes expands to Winnipeg to see them opening a store on the Plaza site but not in the Target building.

The other piece of recent reading was an article that claims most of the established retailers which would even consider Target or Future Shop sites have fully allocated their expansion plans for 2015 and most of 2016. It would seem the most likely outcome for the Polo Park Future Shop is going to be subdividing the space.

Source

[The Unknown Poster]

Perhaps my expectations with Future Shop Pembina were too high. Its such a small space compared to Best Buy. I realise the home appliance thing is their deal but I have never seen anyone in that section ever. Getting rid of it, especially if Best Buy begins carrying Home Appliances, and directing traffic to the bigger stores might be a good plan to open up some valuable floor space.

As far as commission based employees moving to salary based, under the old model no one seemed too interested in helping you unless you were looking at a big dollar TV or grabbed an item off the shelf yourself. That hasnt seemed to change at all.

[CoryB]

The appliances are a fixture that will remain at the Pembina Best Buy. The trend of their stores has actually been to smaller footprints where possible. You don't need to warehouse a large volume of big CRT tv sets anymore, instead of have a very lean stock of flat panels with most models "shipping free to home" from a central warehouse. They have also found the revenue per square foot is far better on smaller, more consumable goods (ie Fitbits and headphones).

In terms of staff, the change will be a slow one as they all need to be retrained in the Best Buy way. Some will likely leave for other commission sales jobs. End of the day though I would not have high hopes across the board.

My recent experience with a Best Buy (not in Winnipeg) was I needed a specific cable. I checked their website before going to the store and saw it was in stock. When I arrived at the store an associate offered to help. I told them what I was looking for and they immediately suggested an Apple branded cable. I was looking for the same product without the branding for a far cheaper price. They took me to the non-Apple cable section, looked and gave up saying the web site was wrong. Leaving me there I decided to look a little further. I took a couple steps over to the "Apple" section and what do you know there is the "out of stock" cable I am looking for and they have about 10 of them on the shelf.

[Danny D Oh]

Found the FP article with three of the biggest retail developers/brokers in Winnipeg saying that there is no problem with empty space in Winnipeg and the large buildings left by Target and Future Shop should be filled within a year quite hilarious. Sure took a lot longer for the Regent Future Shop to have any significant tenant. The last 3 years there's been a Halloween pop-up shop there and nothing else.

Retail vacancy rate is at it's highest point since the early 90s. I think they should be worried.

[Simplicity]

Originally Posted by Danny D Oh

Found the FP article with three of the biggest retail developers/brokers in Winnipeg saying that there is no problem with empty space in Winnipeg and the large buildings left by Target and Future Shop should be filled within a year quite hilarious. Sure took a lot longer for the Regent Future Shop to have any significant tenant. The last 3 years there's been a Halloween pop-up shop there and nothing else.

Retail vacancy rate is at it's highest point since the early 90s. I think they should be worried.

Our good friend Murray McNeill back at it. Nobody knows how to mail-in a job done poorly like Murray McNeill. We've got an issue with retail vacancy? Let's only go to parties with a significant stake in retail property. No reason to pay attention to the general retail trends, let's just ask a few retail sales agents about their poorly informed take on the market.

I have no idea how this guy has a job.

Nothing to see here. Retail is trending down nearly everywhere in the world fro very obvious structural reasons, but Winnipeg should probably survive that trend. Sandy Shindleman said so.

[laumag]

Speaking of Shindico, a "birdie" hinted that Menard's ? was interested in the Target Polo site and Homesense is interested in the Polo Future Shop site. A different birdie told me that one and I am not sure either birdie actually based this information on fact. There is supposed to be some announcement right after Polo's Target closes for good this coming weekend.

[buzzg]

Originally Posted by laumag

Speaking of Shindico, a "birdie" hinted that Menard's ? was interested in the Target Polo site and Homesense is interested in the Polo Future Shop site. A different birdie told me that one and I am not sure either birdie actually based this information on fact. There is supposed to be some announcement right after Polo's Target closes for good this coming weekend.

I have also heard that Walmart is seriously looking at Polo Target. Apparently when they bought their existing land they were under the impression (or told) that those tracks along Empress were going to be removed and they could expand in the future. Obviously as we know, it was actually the ones closer to Route 90 that came out. HA!

[cheswick]

Originally Posted by laumag

Speaking of Shindico, a "birdie" hinted that Menard's ? was interested in the Target Polo site and Homesense is interested in the Polo Future Shop site. A different birdie told me that one and I am not sure either birdie actually based this information on fact. There is supposed to be some announcement right after Polo's Target closes for good this coming weekend.

I saw a couple people post a blog story about Memarda on Facebook. They were unaware that it was actually an April fools day joke story. I hope that's not where your birdie got their information from. I doubt menards would be any better of a fit than lowes for the location. Which would require significant money to convert it into their needs.

[Biff]

Originally Posted by laumag

Speaking of Shindico, a "birdie" hinted that Menard's ? was interested in the Target Polo site and Homesense is interested in the Polo Future Shop site. A different birdie told me that one and I am not sure either birdie actually based this information on fact. There is supposed to be some announcement right after Polo's Target closes for good this coming weekend.

I have heard the same thing about Menards for the Polo Target. I know that Lowes ruled out the Target Polo Park due to floor loads etc, but Menards is a bit of a different bird so I could see it working.

[The Unknown Poster]

Originally Posted by CoryB

The appliances are a fixture that will remain at the Pembina Best Buy. The trend of their stores has actually been to smaller footprints where possible. You don't need to warehouse a large volume of big CRT tv sets anymore, instead of have a very lean stock of flat panels with most models "shipping free to home" from a central warehouse. They have also found the revenue per square foot is far better on smaller, more consumable goods (ie Fitbits and headphones).

In terms of staff, the change will be a slow one as they all need to be retrained in the Best Buy way. Some will likely leave for other commission sales jobs. End of the day though I would not have high hopes across the board.

My recent experience with a Best Buy (not in Winnipeg) was I needed a specific cable. I checked their website before going to the store and saw it was in stock. When I arrived at the store an associate offered to help. I told them what I was looking for and they immediately suggested an Apple branded cable. I was looking for the same product without the branding for a far cheaper price. They took me to the non-Apple cable section, looked and gave up saying the web site was wrong. Leaving me there I decided to look a little further. I took a couple steps over to the "Apple" section and what do you know there is the "out of stock" cable I am looking for and they have about 10 of them on the shelf.

That's a huge pet peeve of mine too. I ALWAYS look online first and when it says in stock, I expect it to be in stock. I argued with a Future Shop employee once who told me they didnt have what I was looking for and when I said the website says you do they said the same thing - website is never right. When I tweeted about it, the reply from corporate was "use our in store reservation system". Ridiculous.

I cant imagine buying anything from Future Shop that costs more than $100 or so. I bought my TV from Visions. But even then, when I went back to buy a Blu Ray player, the guy tried to convince me I needed $140 HDMI cables. That makes me leave a store. I can appreciate a good hustle but why lose a sale over it.

I did notice Visions Pembina has a sign out hiring all positions. Coincedence or wanting to recruit some Future Shop employees?

[CoryB]

Originally Posted by laumag

Speaking of Shindico, a "birdie" hinted that Menard's ? was interested in the Target Polo site and Homesense is interested in the Polo Future Shop site. A different birdie told me that one and I am not sure either birdie actually based this information on fact. There is supposed to be some announcement right after Polo's Target closes for good this coming weekend.

Menard's, even if it had some shade of truth, would fall under the same weight restrictions on the floor plates and need for a lumber yard that reportedly killed to Lowes rumor for the site. Plan and simple no home improvement store, regardless of the banner, is moving into the Polo Park Target.

Separately, while HomeSense moving into the Polo Park Future Shop would seem to make sense the article I had linked to specifically talked about the parent companies (Winners, Marshalls, etc) having fully committed their expansion plans for 2015 and already well into 2016. That isn't a hard no but I wouldn't call that confirmed by any stretch either. I still think a combined Zara and Zara Home could make sense there if they were willing to look just past the walls of Polo Park mall. Primark is another possibility to make a play for a combination of Target and Future Shop sites however that is a real long shot.

Winnipeg seems to be at a tipping point for too much available retail space. Separate from Target and Future Shop there are three vacant Safeway/Sobey's stores with more likely to follow this year. A vacant, large footprint space that was Value Village on Regent. The former River City at Seasons of Tuxedo not to mention all the planned space there that has yet to be built out. The former Toy City/Consumers/Office Depot on Ness. Add in the planned Westport Festival, ASD development, Outlets of Seasons, Plaza at Polo Park and the number of smaller chains with locations throughout the city that have entered bankruptcy this year and you start to get a sense of the available space.

In terms of the "future" for Winnipeg, look how long the mall in Grand Forks went without an anchor after Target moved out and what impact that had on the mall as a whole. Kildonan Place is currently looking at a simple situation. Even more dire, the only other anchor has one foot on a banana peel of their own.

[esquire]

^ Not terribly surprising when you consider how much retail has been built in this city in not even 20 years. The entire Kenaston shopping district didn't exist, and the Polo Park/Regent shopping hubs have grown significantly. New developments like that thing planned for Reenders, Westport Festival, or the Wal-Mart by 101/59 that East St. Paul is salivating to build will just cannibalize existing supply.

[Riverman]

Originally Posted by The Unknown Poster

$140 HDMI cables

This is one of my favourite scams.

[vjose32]

I can understand the problem with Lowes at the former Target but what if they simply enclosed the parkade on the main level and used that for Lowes? And subdivided the second level into other shops or offices? Surely that wouldn't be a weight load issue if it was on the ground. There is plenty of parking space outside to accommodate Lowes customers. They could even use the main level for lumber, gardening, and what not to avoid needing an exterior spot and use the second level for other stuff like appliances. Surely that wouldn't be an issue.

Just seems to me that it is workable if you find a good solution but that nobody bothers to think about solutions like this.

[esquire]

^ That building is too nice for Lowe's. Lowe's just needs a big ground floor shed like Rona or Home Depot... it would be crazy to throw money at it to repurpose it into something capable of housing a Lowe's. Way less hassle for them to just do a new build.

[trebor204]

Originally Posted by vjose32

I can understand the problem with Lowes at the former Target but what if they simply enclosed the parkade on the main level and used that for Lowes? And subdivided the second level into other shops or offices? Surely that wouldn't be a weight load issue if it was on the ground. There is plenty of parking space outside to accommodate Lowes customers. They could even use the main level for lumber, gardening, and what not to avoid needing an exterior spot and use the second level for other stuff like appliances. Surely that wouldn't be an issue.

Just seems to me that it is workable if you find a good solution but that nobody bothers to think about solutions like this.

I believe shopping malls are required to have a minimum amount of parking spaces per square foot of retail space.

[Simplicity]

Storefront retail is dying. I have no idea why nobody wants to acknowledge this problem. The internet retailers are getting better - not worse. I can order something from Amazon and have it in a day and their operations are ten times leaner than a 40K square foot retail operations that relies upon lazy teenagers to stock shelves and show up. They use robots to fetch goods with 100% precision all day and all night and their warehouses are in nondescript rural outposts in flyover country. They might pay $3/ft. In the next 15 years most of the retail giants we know will be dead. The discounters like Homesense, Winners, and Marshalls will survive and the grocery retailers will be fine (hence the movement into grocery by nearly everybody), but the malls are going to be cycling vacancies at a much greater rate.

The only difference between Mexx, Buffalo, and some clothing retailer that's still hanging on is one downturn in the trends. Keeping 10K square feet at $24/ft in Kenaston Common is exactly what will drive you to insolvency. And guys like Shindleman know this which is why they take letters of credit for nearly the entirety of the lease term in the event you go under. That, and it's mostly not their money.

[vjose32]

Then perhaps it is a better idea for Walmart to take the space and Lowes moves into their current location after a small reno.

Though I'm not sure why Walmart needs a bigger location or even if Target is much larger.

[buzzg]

Originally Posted by vjose32

Then perhaps it is a better idea for Walmart to take the space and Lowes moves into their current location after a small reno.

Though I'm not sure why Walmart needs a bigger location or even if Target is much larger.

That Walmart is not a Supercentre — they want it to be.

[drew]

Originally Posted by Biff

I have heard the same thing about Menards for the Polo Target. I know that Lowes ruled out the Target Polo Park due to floor loads etc, but Menards is a bit of a different bird so I could see it working.

If you can take away the heavier loaded stacked goods stuff like lumber, I can't see why a home improvement retailer couldn't make this space work. This kind of building would be designed for 100psf floor loading (live load), plus likely provisions for concentrated loads from shelves, etc.

The other complication may be the operation of a fork-lift. Those are heavy little bastards. Especially a concern on structural floors.

Also, IMO, this is far too attractive a location and building with amenities like covered parking, cart-escalators, etc. to remain empty for long, not to mention that it's essentially brand new construction.