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Aside from the localness of this news, this whole concept is very foreboding for the future of retail in Canada. Cambridge has one of the higher volume Walmarts in Ontario. It as far as location, proximity to the biggest arterial highway in Canada 1/ https://twitter.com/cambridgetimes/status/1308059660751048705
Walmart owns SmartCentres and feels like one of their highest volume locations would be better served being redeveloped for residential and density. Now Walmart is a lot of things, but one thing it's not is stupid. They clearly see the writing on the wall 2/...
Just consider in Cambridge, retail has been struggling for awhile. The Cambridge Centre had to work pretty hard to replace the gaping hole left by Target exiting the Canadian market, and they were only able to do it by cannibalizing tenants from elsewhere in town 3/...
There's no big retail tenant coming to fill in where Rona was. The middle of the SmartCentre is barely scraping by with smaller retailers. And many of the retailers filling the space aren't what you'd call name brand tenants. We've heard how restaurants are struggling 4/...
I'd imagine they understand the toll of this pandemic hasn't even started to be seen at the retail level, but if this is an early indicator, the apocalypse is coming if Walmart is looking for redevelop their real estate holdings away from retail spaces 5/...
The one big question about this plan is, what's the plan for the existing retail? My guess would be a significant downsizing in square footage that stores are willing to pay for. With this pandemic, we've seen what a digital first brick and mortar experience is like 6/...
It doesn't involve expansive retail stores. At this point we don't even know how long this pandemic will last. Just like we've seen businesses aspire to cut down on their physical office holdings and transition to remote, the same will happen with retail square footage 7/...
I know if I was in retail I'd be pretty scared at what a project like this holds for the future of economy. And notice that SmartCentres didn't ask permission to do this, this is going to happen. They wouldn't do this out of the goodness of their hearts or care for #cbridge 8/..
