[Moncton] Retail Thread

[josh_cat_eyes]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Thanks Erick. No, this fact was not previously known.

It's not a surprise though. Urban Kids belongs to the same stable as Urban Planet/Suzy/West 49 and Blue Notes, all of which already exist at Champlain Place.

The store design looks interesting:



I wonder which space in the mall they will take over? Do you have any idea when they plan to open?

I'm in Urban Plannet right now and they have racks of kids clothes with the URBAN Kids logo on it. I wonder if they plan on incorporating it into the Urban Planet store.

[MonctonRad]

Possibly josh, but the job advert clearly stated "new store opening".

They might just want to introduce their merchandise into the market for the new school year, and put it in Urban Planet for now.

Time will tell.........

[Hogie75]

Costco Moncton RUMOUR time again. Apparently the Harrisville location is a go per Retail Facebook page. Moving, being larger and with a Gas Station.

[MonctonRad]

Only with the help of about $20M of municipal and provincial funding to widen Harrisville Blvd and widen the overpass over Veterans Highway.

[Patapouf26]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Only with the help of about $20M of municipal and provincial funding to widen Harrisville Blvd and widen the overpass over Veterans Highway.

I understand what you're saying, but one could easily argue that it (widening) has to be done anyways. IMHO, this has long been overdue and if a significant project like this helps spur this, well, all the power to them.

[gehrhardt]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Only with the help of about $20M of municipal and provincial funding to widen Harrisville Blvd and widen the overpass over Veterans Highway.

That overpass is quite a bottleneck during commute times, so I think it's necessary regardless of Costco moving.

[Ammn_guy]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Only with the help of about $20M of municipal and provincial funding to widen Harrisville Blvd and widen the overpass over Veterans Highway.

The power of the fascination everyone has with retail in moncton.. governments bending over backwards so people can shop.

The money would be better spent at the airport or the mapleton exit.

The airport is long overdue for an overpass.. which would probably strongly help the harrisville issue.

Mapleton overpass needs a set of lights the west bound ramp its increasingly dangerous, while harrisville is a headache its not as much of a safety issue.
But costco is coming so .. the government needs to pay for them to build in an undeveloped area, even though there is huge tracks of land in mapleton area.

The biggest fear i have is seeing this cycle start where the city continuously sprawls resulting in gutting the core.. like what happened in St john. Costco is very central right now.. the city has grown around it.... move it to the outskirts.. and the city sprawl will follow it, other companies closing up shop and moving to follow costco.. subdivisions popping up on shediac rd cause there are services their. leaving vacant shells in the old neighbor hood.

[MonctonRad]

I agree that the widening of Harrisville Blvd and the overpass over Veteran's Highway are necessary anyway, but I share Ammn_guy's concern that the probable move of Costco to Harrisville Blvd will only result in hollowing out the existing retail cluster on Mapleton/Trinity/Plaza as retailers relocate in order to stay on Costco's coat-tails. The net result will be retail vacancies on Mapleton and increasing urban sprawl........

[MonctonRad]

There's something afoot at Mapleton Crossing. There is extensive site prep work going on in the portion of the development where buildings "F" and "G" are located on the site plan below:



There were at least seven earth moving vehicles on site this evening, including four large dump trucks, a couple of excavators and a bulldozer.



I have no idea what's being built here, but I don't think Cordova Realty would be building anything on spec; that's generally not their style.

Interestingly the Cordova website doesn't seem to be operational right now.......

[Ifyoubuildit]

Originally Posted by Hogie75

Costco Moncton RUMOUR time again. Apparently the Harrisville location is a go per Retail Facebook page. Moving, being larger and with a Gas Station.

Did they happen to say the source? How many years does it take to plan the engineering of making an over pass twice as wide and twin Harrisville? How long did all that take to occur from decision to completion on Mapleton? 5-7yrs? Does land have to be expropriated for widening Harrisville? How long does that take? Costco wants to move for an immediate improvement of ease of doing business. Would 5yrs of widening and bridge work on Harrisville help their business? And I would guess you are talking more like 30-40mil+ to widen an overpass and twin a basic road to that of a boulevard especially if the intention is to handle traffic properly from both the TCH and Veterans Highway. Isn't our province broke? Just some questions and thoughts. I just don't buy the Harrisville rumour.

[Mapleton_Roadie]

Just throwing that silly idea out there. Would a new and bigger Costco fit where Cordova is clearing land beside Cabela's? Especially if the other 2 lots were cleared as well. Not likely eh? Just looked back at a n aerial photo overlay of Guelph Costco that was posted a month ago, and the fit is not even close. Might have been a good location if land was available.

[NBNYer]

Originally Posted by Mapleton_Roadie

Just throwing that silly idea out there. Would a new and bigger Costco fit where Cordova is clearing land beside Cabela's? Especially if the other 2 lots were cleared as well. Not likely eh? Just looked back at a n aerial photo overlay of Guelph Costco that was posted a month ago, and the fit is not even close. Might have been a good location if land was available.

I thought about this too but google maps shows this lot is already much smaller then the current Costco location so I doubt this is their new location. Also, the lots are separated by the Mapleton Park access road so they could not be combined.

[L'homard]

Originally Posted by Hogie75

Costco Moncton RUMOUR time again. Apparently the Harrisville location is a go per Retail Facebook page. Moving, being larger and with a Gas Station.

Well, that's what they do over there, repeat the same thing every few days and then claim that as evidence that the rumour is true.

[Hogie75]

Originally Posted by L'homard

Well, that's what they do over there, repeat the same thing every few days and then claim that as evidence that the rumour is true.

I saw nothing on that article that said it was a sure thing, I believe he said it was something someone forwarded him. Nothing wrong with sharing something we heard as long as they say its a rumour.

[MonctonRad]

Agreed - the Facebook retail page is no more speculative than we are. It's important though to label a rumour as a rumour so as not to mislead people.

BTW, the construction site at Mapleton Crossing is certainly too small for Costco. There is not even a whisper of a rumour as to what this might be (yet), but this is the spot where we were speculating (yes, speculating) would be an ideal spot for an IKEA pick-up point store. Imterestingly they have just completed site prep on the full service IKEA store in Dartmouth Crossing, and formal construction is now underway.

Hmmmmm..........

[Scarface]

I'm going to put this here it will either put the rumors to rest on the Costco, or make em stronger. The rumors of Costco moving to Harisville Blvd started as Costco was saying there location was not big enough to add a Gas station, and there is a plot of land off Harisville (Babineau Blvd) that seems to be big enough for one of there stores+gas bar, and also have a larger parking lot. Then after the land has been rumored to have been sold people (myself included) became more determined that it was going to be the new Costco location.

As for widening Harisville Blvd, and the overpass it seems like all the businesses, and parking have been purpose built waiting for the potential widening. At least the section between Shediac Road, and Highway 15.

[Taeolas]

Just an observation, that ultimately doesn't mean much. But if you look at the map, the three current NB Costco's are all inside the triangle formed by their respective cities. Which does mean they're basically as 'close' to eachother as they can be while still being in their cities.

If Moncton Costco moves to Harrisville, it will be outside that triangle and be on the NS/PEI side of Moncton.

Now ultimately it doesn't really mean much; but that might ultimately make it slightly more appealing to NS/PEI shoppers than the current one is. (not much but a little); especially if the current store has seen a drop from the West and North West part of the province since SJ and Freddy Costco's opened.

[MonctonRad]

Having Costco on one side of Moncton or the other would make no difference to out of towners from northern NB, PEI or northern NS.

A Harrisville location certainly would make Costco less well placed to serve about half the urban population of the tri-city area (those who live in NW Moncton and Riverview).

FWIW, I don't think the opening of the stores in Freddy and SJ made any difference in the amount of business the Moncton store does. The Moncton store is a zoo about 95% of the time.

There was only one time this summer that I went to Costco where the parking lot was quiet. It was such an unusual occurrence that I had to remark on it to the staff in the store. They agreed. It almost never happens.......

[Ifyoubuildit]

Originally Posted by Taeolas

Just an observation, that ultimately doesn't mean much. But if you look at the map, the three current NB Costco's are all inside the triangle formed by their respective cities. Which does mean they're basically as 'close' to eachother as they can be while still being in their cities.

If Moncton Costco moves to Harrisville, it will be outside that triangle and be on the NS/PEI side of Moncton.

Now ultimately it doesn't really mean much; but that might ultimately make it slightly more appealing to NS/PEI shoppers than the current one is. (not much but a little); especially if the current store has seen a drop from the West and North West part of the province since SJ and Freddy Costco's opened.

Having friends and family from Amherst area that travel to Moncton to go shopping, I don't see this benefiting Costco at all. All of them prefer driving down the TCH and the easy straight line access to retail in the North End via Mapleton. Most have told me over the years they don't even go to Champlain Mall because of the congestion and do all their shopping in the North End. And Costco in SJ went to East Point Shopping development because that is where all the new box stores are and proper infra-structure exists with boulevards and planned traffic ingress/egress. Just like Costco is in Bayers Lake box store development. I can not imagine a Costco opening on Harrisville with the traffic it draws and after they open there will be 5-7yrs of construction to widen bridge(s) and build Harrisville into a Boulevard. Don't think that traffic and road construction nightmare would help Costco's sales....

[Scarface]

Originally Posted by Ifyoubuildit

Having friends and family from Amherst area that travel to Moncton to go shopping, I don't see this benefiting Costco at all. All of them prefer driving down the TCH and the easy straight line access to retail in the North End via Mapleton. Most have told me over the years they don't even go to Champlain Mall because of the congestion and do all their shopping in the North End. And Costco in SJ went to East Point Shopping development because that is where all the new box stores are and proper infra-structure exists with boulevards and planned traffic ingress/egress. Just like Costco is in Bayers Lake box store development. I can not imagine a Costco opening on Harrisville with the traffic it draws and after they open there will be 5-7yrs of construction to widen bridge(s) and build Harrisville into a Boulevard. Don't think that traffic and road construction nightmare would help Costco's sales....

The 5-7 Year is based on old construction practices, If new methods where being used by the city it would not take as long in fact it would more then half the time if i'm not mistaken.