As Targets close, new Walmart set to welcome customers

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This article was published 27/01/2015 (4146 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The body of its biggest competitor is barely cold, but Walmart Canada isn’t holding back on its expansion plans in Winnipeg.

The world’s largest retailer is preparing to open the doors to its newest ‘Supercentre,’ a 160,000-square-foot location that will feature both general merchandise and groceries. When the ribbon is cut Thursday, it will be the first tenant in the Grant Park Pavilions development, a 24-hectare site bordered by Taylor Avenue, Pembina Highway and the CN railway tracks.

“They’re stocking the shelves right now,” said John Pearson, a broker at Shindico Realty Inc./IC&I Properties, which owns the Grant Park Pavilions.

The store is just a few hundred metres away from the soon-to-be liquidating Target store at Grant Park Shopping Centre.

“Coincidentally, it happens to be excellent timing from Walmart’s perspective with Target closing. Walmart is opening with a brand-new fresh store where Target was converting stores to what they thought would work,” he said.

“Walmart is very entrenched in Canada with a well-seasoned store and distribution system.”

Shindico is also a co-developer on the land where Target’s Polo Park store will soon be mothballed. Open for just three months, it’s the shortest length of time a retailer has operated out of a new building in Winnipeg, he said.

No announcements on what retailer will take over the space are imminent, he said.

“We are pursuing alternative replacement occupants,” he said.

It will take several years until the $200-million, mixed-use development at Grant Park Pavilions is fully occupied, but when it is, Pearson said, it will include large-format retail, smaller retail, restaurants, office space, apartments and possibly seniors housing.

He said he doesn’t have a timetable for when its second tenant will open its doors.

“We have various things in play. It will be as soon as possible,” he said.

There will also be 18 pathways for bikes and pedestrians and buses can also be accommodated.

“You can live, work and play, all on the same site,” Pearson said.

geoff.kirbyson@freepress.mb.ca