Lots of great comments in response to Food Deserts and Big Boxes on the North Shore. Take a re-read if necessary to reference what I was responding to. Here’s what I wrote back to Walter Cicha:
Mr. Cicha,
Not to worry, the parking lot lives. I doubt we’ll see a change (i.e. a loss of surface parking) at Park Royal in our generation. Or the end of large format boxes along Marine Drive.
But where the possibility of more urban forms of density are possible and the demand is there, then it won’t just be supermarket parking lots that disappear but also gas stations and other uses that take a lot of surface space. I expect there will still be parking – but not as much and underground.
The Vancouver of the 1950s is a half century past. Perhaps Vancouverites of mid century regretted the loss of the city of 1900. I’m pretty sure the Vancouverites of 2050 will be fighting to save their heritage – possibly whatever gets built on the Safeway site today. Sign of a healthy city, I think.
Thanks for writing – and let me know what happens.
Gord Price
Some PT readers responded with helpful suggestions. For those who don’t get the North Shore News, a recommendation from Derek Bell, who tells the story of a previous grocery-store closure:
There was a small IGA store at 41st Avenue and Balsam Street that catered to the elderly residents of nearby apartments and condominiums. A mile west, there was (and still is) another IGA store at 41st Avenue and Dunbar Street.
My late mother lived in one of the apartment buildings near the Balsam Street location and relied on that store for her day-to-day needs. IGA closed that store to the great dismay of its customers, including my mother.
But the company did a terrific thing for its loyal customers: For many months, it ran an hourly shuttle bus from the closed store to the larger one at Dunbar.
Mother enjoyed this service until she was unable to do even that.
The wonderful seniors, our residents and my customers, truly need something like this. Could H.Y. Louie consider operating a shuttle bus from their parking lot at 16th Street and Marine Drive to their IGA Marketplace store in Dundarave?
And here’s an ingenious idea, passed along by Scot Bathgate, from UrbanRelations:
Next month, Seattle’s South Park neighborhood will have a new option for grocery shopping: Stockbox Grocers, a tiny permanent grocery store that has fresh produce, dairy, and meats, in a neighborhood where fresh and easy food isn’t always available.
By turning attention to selling perishable items instead of 23 kinds of vitamin-enriched water, they focus on the inventory that moves most quickly—and that can mean healthy profits. But the health of the community is still what drives the startup.
I love this idea. I serve on a food policy council and this is a great alternative to corner stores or trying to get grocery stores into neighborhoods where the market doesn’t support it.