Canadian Tire (almost) ready to roll

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 06/06/2016 (3566 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A second replacement tenant has been found for the former Target store in the Grant Park Shopping Centre.

GoodLife Fitness has leased the remaining 35,000 square feet of the roughly 120,000 square feet Target used to occupy in the Grant Avenue mall.

Ariane McFayden, GoodLife’s director of operations, said the space will be split in two, with a GoodLife Fitness club taking a little less than two-thirds of it, and a Fit4Less by GoodLife club taking the rest. Both clubs are expected to open in the spring of next year.

Canadian Tire announced last May it was taking the other 85,000 square feet of the Target space, and that its new store would be opening some time this summer. However, David Guitard, owner of the new Grant Park franchise, said recently a firm opening date has now been set — June 23.

“People are stocking shelves and getting it ready for the 23rd and making it look like a Canadian Tire store,” Guitard said, adding the exterior signage should be installed some time this week.

Guitard said he and his family have moved here from Woodstock, N.B., where he owned another Canadian Tire franchise. This will be the fourth Canadian Tire store he has owned since joining the retail chain, but his first in Winnipeg.

He said Canadian Tire has wanted to open a store in the Grant Park area for a long time. It was just waiting for the right location to become available.

“We should have been here a long time ago. The demand was there, and this mall has always been good.”

McFayden said the mall is also an ideal location for a GoodLife Fitness club.

“We wanted to make sure we’re providing a convenient location for people, and Grant Park Shopping Centre is a busy, vibrant diverse area,” she said.

“We also saw it as a great opportunity to open a unique location there,” she said, noting while GoodLife Fitness has 365 clubs in Canada, this is only the third location where it has a GoodLife Fitness and a Fit4Less side by side.

As the name implies, Fit4Less is a low-cost version of a GoodLife Fitness club. Although it has a good selection of strength-training and cardio-fitness equipment, it doesn’t have the personal trainers, coaches and group-fitness classes GoodLife Fitness offers. It does have the same hours of operation, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

This will be the company’s first Fit4Less club in Winnipeg and its eighth GoodLife Fitness location. McFayden said the company is interested in opening more of each if the right locations become available. She also noted the company will be opening its first GoodLife Fitness location in Brandon later this year.

Sandra Hagenaars, general manager of the Grant Park Shopping Centre, said GoodLife Fitness and Fit4Less will be great additions to the mall.

“Not only will these clubs encourage multiple visits per week to the mall, they will further enhance Grant Park’s unique mix of service and retail tenants.”

‘We should have been here a long time ago. The demand was there, and this mall has always been good’

She said the opening of the Canadian Tire store will also help attract more shoppers to the mall.

“They offer such a wide variety of merchandise and services. When you think about it, it’s a store that really has something for both men and women.”

She also noted with all of the other stores in the mall, which include a Shoppers Drug Mart, Red River Co-op grocery store, McNally Robinson Bookstore and a Liquor Mart, “You can make that one stop and get a lot of things done.”

She said the additon of Canadian Tire and the two GoodLife clubs are among a number of changes coming to the mall. She said a number of existing tenants at the west end of the mall also are being moved around to make room for another new anchor tenant that’s coming to the mall. She wouldn’t say who it is because the leasing deal hasn’t yet been finalized.

“But it’s going to be a sizable tenant,” she said.

As was earlier reported, a new Cambrian Credit Union branch is also under construction near the southwest corner of the mall’s parking lot. It’s expected to open in November.

Know of any newsworthy or interesting trends or developments in the local office, retail or industrial retail sectors? Let real estate reporter Murray McNeill know at the email address below or at 204-697-7254

murray.mcneill@freepress.mb.ca