Sony Canada will close its store in the Yorkdale Shopping Centre plus eleven or so others across Canada. Yorkdale rent combined with youthful non-buyers has made the retail venture a short-lived project.
Gloom hangs over East York Town Centre
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There’s a gloom over East York Town Centre as Target employees, fellow retailers, residents of Thorncliffe Park and the mall’s owner ponder the bombshell decision by Target to close all 133 stores in Canada. At the Town Centre there is a special problem and it seems apparent to most people. “Where will they find someone to take this store,” said a woman who has worked at the centre in this same enormous building since 1994. She understood that she had been lucky to catch on with Target as Zeller’s wound down. “But now there is no one waiting to come here,” she said quietly as she stocked shelves. The arrival of Target was to be part of a renewal for the Centre. Few people could have guessed at today’s outcome as Target poured money into the former Zeller’s store. A complete new escalator with tracks for shopping baskets was installed. The appeal of the Target brand to women from upscale neighborhoods in South Bayview and to the west was rolled out for discussion. It seems there is no such secret appeal. And there was the franchise-damaging snafu in which Target could not keep the shelves filled. Now the demise is cast as a battle with low-end giant Wal-Mart. The East York Town Centre is owned by Morguard real estate investment and seen in such circles as a secondary mall. It has the big banks in it and a Shoppers Drug Mart, but the food stores make a different statement. Food Basics is a discount arm of the Metro chain. The centre’s location is in land-locked Thorncliffe Park. It is said 30,000 people live here in apartments but there are very few roads in and out. In the days and months to come, Morguard and perhaps quite a few of the other landlords will need good luck to put their malls back into front line service. The best guess among employees today was that the store might remain open for a maximum of six months. Why Target waved whiter flag –Star
Target release speaks of making “orderly exit”
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“Bankrupt” Target Canada seeks protection
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Birdman, Hotel, Boyhood are 2015 Oscar noms
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Not profitable! Target’s sudden move closes Canadian stores
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Thousands of square feet of retail space left vacant by decision of Target to abandon Canada in 2015/Bulldog
A short statement from Target Corporation Thursday morning says the company plans to shut down all 133 stores in Canada and this would include the location at East York Town Centre. It is a shocking retail development notwithstanding all the difficulty Target has faced in keeping inventory stocked and achieving some sort of price competition with its stores in the U.S. The Target venture has seen stores open barely 18 months since the U.S. firm negotiated a series of leases most of which were held by Zellers. Employees are said to be eligible for 16 weeks of wages and benefits.
Jays play the alienation game with Paul Beeston
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Pay-by-phone street-parking is a year away
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It will be 2016 before South Bayview motorists, as well as those on Mt. Pleasant and across Toronto, will be able to use their cellphones to pay for parking on Toronto streets. This word comes from Lorne Persiko, president of the Toronto Parking Authority. The TPA is currently preparing the roll-out of pay-by-phone in the City’s Green P lots. The process is staged, said Mr. Persiko, to be sure the TPA can make it work to everyone’s satisfaction. Pay-by-phone parking is popping up all over North America and has proven to be a major public service. It permits drivers to open a so-called “wallet” not too different from the accounts offered by retail businesses such as Starbucks. The convenience represented in paying for parking by phone however would seem to surpass anything now in use. With an account containing $20, for example, a motorist can park and by entering the car’s license plate and certain other information, pre-pay for as much parking as is needed. Critically, the system permits drivers who are delayed getting back to their vehicle to top-up the parking without penalty from wherever they are. It should be a boon to anyone delayed at the dentist or for old friends lingering over coffee. It will be hard to incur a ticket because the phone alerts drivers to the approaching end of their paid time. In addition, it will eliminate completely the abusive confiscation of money. At present, anyone wishing to top up time must go to the meter, buy a new ticket, forfeiting the amount left on the old one.
Scope of carbon tax is potentially breathtaking
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A carbon tax is an additional tax on people (you) for burning stuff. If you heat with gas, throw wood on the fire, drive a car, ride in a jetliner — you make nasty carbon. Carbon is said to make the environment warmer. That is why the Premier is now talking much more warmly about a carbon tax. She has not said she will do it, but — well — maybe she will. So on that happy day, you will pay for your gasoline (plus all the present taxes that are on it) and you will also pay a carbon tax for burning it. The rationale of the carbon tax is that it will be so painful that people will stop burning carbon. Of course, in the meantime, it would be another “tool” for Ontario to find money that might find its way against the province’s enormous deficit. The scope and breadth of the carbon tax is potentially breathtaking. We burn stuff for everything. The carbon tax comes close to a tax on oxygen. Is there any place you’d rather be? Explained in BC talk
Rollercoaster: Blackberry denies Samsung deal
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Sunnybrook Plaza has 2 or 3 years left say tenants
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Listening to the employees of two large tenants at Sunnybrook Plaza, the venerable shopping strip has perhaps two years of life left in its long history as the first strip mall to be built in Toronto after World War II. “We’ve been told by Rio.Can that in maybe two years they will start taking things down,” said one employee. It is a feeling felt throughout the mall and in Leaside too. People are talking more openly than ever about the condominium that will replace Sunnybrook Plaza. Rio.Can has proposed a zoning amendment to the property that would permit towers 19 and 13 storeys high and have retail at grade. There will be retail growth east of Laird Drive, but that’s not Bayview Ave. Will development on Eglinton lead to a re-birth of business on South Bayview? One property owner, Brown Group, wants to build a nine-storey retail-residential building on Bayview between Soudan and Hillsdale Aves.Urban Toronto
Import executives go to jail for death of worker
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Two Brampton company directors have been been sentenced to 25 days in jail after pleading guilty to safety violations in the death of an employee. The man fell off of what is called a high order-picker (inset). It is a form of forklift that permits the operator to access high shelves and then lower the order for delivery to a truck. The convicted men are Baldev Pura and Rajinder Saini — both are directors of New Mex Canada Inc. — an importer and retailer of furniture and accessories. A worker was moving merchandise in the Brampton facility when he fell from the high order-picker. The order-picker did not have a guard rail around the platform nor was the worker wearing a harness or safety shoes. He was found on the floor dead of a head injury. The sentence will be served on weekends. A Ministry of Labour investigation found multiple violations of Ontario law. New Mex Canada pleaded guilty to failing to provide information, instruction and supervision to a worker regarding fall protection and/or working from a height. The company also pleaded guilty to failing as an employer to ensure the safety measures required by law were carried out.