Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Rumours confirmed

It looks like Alan Halberstadt is somewhat of a clairvoyant. When we presented to council about the evils of the CoCoBox development on the border of Windsor, Alan launched into a pretty good speech about how the west side WalMart and the Huron Church/Tecumseh Canadian Tire store would like close and leave us with more empty Big Box stores to deal with. I guess he is right!

On a good source, I've been told that in addition to Loblaw's (which we already knew was putting a superstore sort of bigbox store out there) WalMart and Canadian Tire will be opening stores at the periphery of our city. Three stores filled, one to go.

I wonder what Windsor will do with all the empty Big Box stores in the city interior.

Oh yeah, one more psuedo rumour. The Home Depot store, which is moving out the SilverCity complex area in the 1st quarter next year, has already been sold to a new owner. Not sure who it is, but the rumour mill says Ikea has purchased it. We'll have to wait and see who buys that BigBox site -- but the papers are signed, sealed and delivered. Now it's just a matter of time.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I really doubt Ikea. From what I heard, The same property Co. that owns the mall owns the Home Depot site. HD was only a tennant.

While Ikea would be a nice addition to the city, I don't think that site is condusive to resuse as an Ikea.

More than likely it will sit vacant for a long time.

Lowe's is making inroads into Canada opening stores in the GTA, I wouldn't mind seeing a Lowe's open up. Competition is a good thing.

Anonymous said...

Ikea....really. Lets see ...Toronto Montreal Calgary Edmonton Vancouver ottawa.....yep I'd say Windsor is next on the list.

Josh Biggley said...

Andrew -- from what my source was saying HD actually owned the building that is next to the mall. Apparently they bought it a couple of years into the lease, which is really strange for a Big Box corp.

According to this insider, the building is already sold. They couldn't (wouldn't?) divulge who the new owner was, but they did, as I noted in the post, speculate that the new owner was Ikea. Like anonymous said, it seems that Windsor is next on the hitlist. Though with an Ikea in Canton, MI it does seem a little strange...not to mention the site being kind of small. The rumour included them taking over the current Union Energy building which fronts onto Provincial Road. Now that would be a big enough site for Ikea...

Anonymous said...

um anonymous was being sarcastic.

Anonymous said...

yes I was....Do you really think a international chain that locates in major metropolitan cities is going to relocate in Windsor? Come on guys lets get grounded.
The reality is that the HD site combined with the Union Gas site will be the home of the first Wal-Mart Super Center (groceries and Hard-lines) in Windsor. That will mean the Dougall store will sit empty or they will sublease it to a non competing chain.

Anonymous said...

The TD Bank is just moving from it's current site on the corner of Wyandotte and Ouellette to the new site. No big impact for downtown. Just another dead bank building on the old intersection. Some news.