Peter Ladner called it out on Twitter last week with the tweet posted below. City News has reported on the increasing retail vacancies evident in downtown Vancouver and in some of the commercial streets of surrounding neighbourhoods, suggesting quite validly that property tax was a culprit.
But Peter also pointed out the increased interest and reliance on internet retailing, specifically the 450,000 square foot Amazon fulfillment centre to be built on the Tsawwassen First Nations territory creating 700 local jobs. This is the first facility to be built by Amazon on First Nations land, and Amazon has two other distribution centres located in Delta and New Westminster.
Amazon already employs 1,500 people in downtown Vancouver and this new facility will be their tenth in Canada. But as futurist Doug Stephens of the Retail Prophet observed in the Financial Post “Amazon isn’t really a retailer in the conventional sense — they are a data innovation and technology company that sells things. On the one hand, it makes them tremendously dangerous, but on the other hand, it leaves them vulnerable.”
What he means by this is that you need to know what you want when you want to buy it. Surprisingly big variety aisle stores such as Costco, Winners and Marshall’s with an array of product and wide variety of product have remained competitive. Chapters, with their boutique within a book store concept has also been effective at maintaining a client base. They have also developed what the industry calls a “treasure hunt” attitude with customers, where shoppers actively browse through the stores for unique finds. The two elements of having a “good in-store retail experience” and also being able to successfully browse for gifts are two things that on-line retailing cannot provide. That niche marketing or offering specific services that cannot be met by on-line retail may be the sweet spot for some local businesses as Amazon continues to grab market share in Canada. Death By Amazon may spark retail innovation and ingenuity in boutique businesses and pop-ups, rejuvenating local independent businesses.
With road use basically free, but property taxes and leases on the rise, it is obvious that online shopping, delivered to your door is far more cost effective. Also see the rise of UberEats ( except in socialist BC, of course).
Only when road use is priced heavily, such that every Uber, UPS or Fedex truck pays quite a bit more, ie shipping charges go way up, will we see more foot oriented retail again.
Many cities now have too much retail, often at triple to quintuple the property taxes, in a disparate but failing attempt by too many city councils to collect more tax revenue. City councils ought to rezone in many locations.
I used to live in Canmore, AB where for a decade overbuilt retail sat empty. Another, more local, silly example is the water front in Steveston, Richmond, BC where the ground floor of several large new buildings is retail, but empty due to too little foot traffic.
The right mix matters.
I agree with Thomas on road pricing to help with the imbalance.
But I also question the idea that we’re facing a calamity of empty storefronts. It hasn’t been my observation except with two glaring and notable exceptions: Robson Street which has become tired and reliant on the enormous success of twenty five years ago. And Granville Street outside of the “mall” section. Is it just taxes? Or do greedy owners play a big role? How much of it is resistance to re-inventing itself? Isn’t it about time these streets became car-free and therefore unique and attractive places to spend time?
The streets that were to be decimated by the introduction of bike lanes are doing just fine. Granville Mall is not plagued with empty stores but the section with cars is struggling. A pattern?
I’ve also walked a bunch of our commercial arterials lately and have seen very few boarded up stores. I question whether we’ll have enough commercial frontage as the city densifies.
Ron van der Eerden: Jak King writes an interesting blog, focussed on Commercial Drive. On or around the first of each month he walks the entire Drive and notes all the vacancies, renovations, and new businesses on the street. There are a dozen vacancies on an extremely popular street, some going back over two years. Retail is in trouble in Vancouver, and the trend is not good for small independent businesses. They will be replaced by national and international chain stores, and neighborhood character will be lost. This month’s summary is a nice little read.
https://jaksview3.wordpress.com/2018/10/01/changes-on-the-drive-86/
Too funny! I went to the blog and was hit with a pop-up from Amazon that I couldn’t make go away without exiting altogether. Okay… not so funny.
Maybe I’ll have to check out The Drive myself. To be honest I’ve been boycotting that street because of the determination of their business association to keep bike lanes and other people-friendly improvements away. If they’re so determined to be unsuccessful and stuck in the past then I can certainly help them with that. It also doesn’t help their businesses that there is so much resistance in the neighbourhood to increasing density – and local customers.
And is that their problem? Old fashioned people making critical decisions that keep me (and maybe a lot of others) away? I’ve heard the mantra that The Drive is a destination street. “How are my customers from maple Ridge going to find parking right in front of my [insert business] if there’s a bike lane instead?”
I’m not surprised at all that The Drive is struggling more than it should. It’s got to start behaving primarily like a neighbourhood street that is cooler than most and as such may attract from a broader area. Instead it attempts to cling primarily to an old Italian customer base that has fled to distant suburbs. There appears to be some new businesses that have a different approach and are more receptive to street improvements but too much of the old guard fails to change with the times.
Last night I walked a big stretch of Main. I wouldn’t say that about Main. I wasn’t specifically counting closed up storefronts but it didn’t have the vibe like it was an issue.
It is no different along South Granville, lots of empty stores.
Can’t be from a lack of cars, elimination of parking, a flight of the rich nor from bike lanes. Nor, I’d suggest, from the rise of Amazon.
South Granville is/was known for private art galleries – a destination street that catered more to the wealthier segment of society. Main has successfully transitioned from a destination street of dozens of antique shops into a primarily neighbourhood street. It has a certain cool factor that attracts a younger and decidedly less rich demographic.
I was just on Robson east of Granville. It also appears to be doing well, unlike the “hot destination” west of Burrard. East of Granville it functions as more of a neighbourhood street for the residents of downtown south. (Admittedly it also benefits from other major attractions nearby.) If I were to see a pattern I’d say that streets dependent on those who live far away are in greater trouble and those that meet the needs of people who can walk or cycle are doing fine. And isn’t that the essence of the walkable neighbourhoods we’ve been aiming for?
Indeed. Main Street is doing well. In fact, I’d day they should convert the single-detached housing to apartments with continuous sidewalk commercial-retail zoning from 34th to 41st, thus closing a gap to offer housing a lot more affordable than the detached zones, and also to provide solid storefront footage all the way to 49th. Even the newer buildings with higher lease rates do not stay vacant forever. Many are partitioned into two or more retail spaces, and though the lease rates are probably a bit higher per m2 than the original larger space, the overall monthly rate is affordable even to small organic food outlets and such.
Granville Street is basically car free downtown. Too many homeless folks loitering though !
But yes, many landlords overcharge and retailers are set up for failure, eg Robson Strasse.
Why is this street not a pedestrian zone ALL THE WAY from stadium to Stanley Park ?
There is a photo of a bookstore up top, probably a Chapters / Indigo. It is true that bookstores have generally suffered with the onslaught of online retailing. However, not all bookstores are created equal.
Take Munro’s in Victoria. Prime retail site and heritage building owned by the bookstore itself, a loyal clientele and a diverse literary selection so good that it was rated the third best bookstore in the world. It’s also noteworthy that Victoria’s Bolen’s Books and Russell Books are still two of the biggest in the West. Three excellent bookstores in a city with less than 90,000 people and a metro of 383,400. That’s saying something.
https://www.straight.com/blogra/665501/victorias-munros-books-ranked-third-best-bookstore-world
London has three enormous book retailers, all with a venerable character and history. Foyle’s Books on Charing Cross Road is five storeys with every conceivable title and a great cafe on the fifth floor. Waterstone’s Books has several locations on high-rent streets but offers a wide selection with an amazing depth of volumes on rather obscure subjects. Their Bloomsbury branch is in a very photogenic historic building. Hatchard’s on Piccadilly is said to be the grandmother of them all and also offers a scholar’s diversity of titles. It is not readily apparent that Amazon and other inline retailing has affected them much, probably because they have joined the game and offer their own online shopping with discounts, and also a loyal clientele within a city of 10 million people. I am surprised that none of these three booksellers mentions a world rating.
I would assume then it is from the Chapters on Robson, which closed as much because of rent issues as Amazon. The one at B’way and Granville seems to do quite well.
Could be, but it could also be the Richmond, Strawberry Hill, or North Van Chapters. It’s been a few years, but the Robson store only had that kind of floorspace on the top floor, and even then I doubt there’d be enough room for both the bargain book table and the column-stand.
Chapters/Indigo is opening an exciting new store on Robson neat Thurlow.
I feel the need to note that Commercial Drive is not suffering so badly. The spike in storefront vacancies that my graphs show in the past year has been caused primarily by the construction of 8 NEW storefronts rather than closures. These new stores are now slowly getting rented and you can see that the number of vacancies is shrinking consistently. https://jaksview3.wordpress.com/2018/10/01/changes-on-the-drive-86/
Chapters at Robson & Howe closing probably had a lot to do with their lease expiring and the rent going up. to current market rates. They maintained a small Indigo store on Granville in the interim until they secured the “new” space on Robson – which is the former Forever 21 store (which I understand is a youthful fast fashion clothing store that does well in the suburbs but couldn’t survive on Robson St.).
If you go to Metropolis at Metrotown on any weekend, you would never imagine that there is a crisis in bricks and mortar retail.
I agree with Ron, above, that people probably are not willing to travel great distances to shop anymore – unless there is something very unique.
Metropolis at Metrotown has all the stores that Robson St. has and is right on the Expo Line – capturing suburban shoppers before they cross into Vnacouver. Gone are the days when shoppers would travel (by whatever mode) from the suburbs all the way to downtown Vancouver…. at least for the mainstream market. There may still be a demand for the “high end” stores you hear about on neighbouring Alberni St., but those may cater primarily to rich foreign tourists (as Holt Renfrew does).
Amazing Brentwood, once fully renovated and rebuilt, will similarly catch suburban shoppers on the Millennium Line before they reach Vancouver.