[URBAN NOTE] "Proposed Walmart near Kensington Market has residents fuming"

[rfmcdonald]

On reflection, I'm increasingly inclined to disagree with the residents and others quoted in Alex Ballingall's Toronto Star article who are opposed to the construction of a Walmart on the western periphery of Kensington Market, on Bathurst Street. If the businesses of Kensington Market aren't attracting people by virtue of their superior quality but rather by their captive markets, then it's a question as to how much it's worth to keep them going.

The plan calls for a 125,000-square-foot retail building between 410 and 440 Bathurst St., where Walmart would occupy the second and third floors, said Sonshine.

The ground level would consist of several convenience outlets, like banks or drugstores, with underground parking for more than 300 vehicles.

“This will be a very beautiful building. This will not look like a Walmart,” said Sonshine, describing it as an “urban” variant of the famously squat and sprawling box store. “We think this is what fits with the neighbourhood.”

Honest Ed’s, the perennially glitzy bargain warehouse, sits north of the site, at Bloor and Bathurst Sts. The potential competitor’s reaction to the Walmart proposal is relatively relaxed.

“We’ve had large stores and small stores go up everywhere around us,” said general manager Russell Lazar, who’s worked at Honest Ed’s since 1958, when he was 7.

“We don’t begrudge anybody that wants to do business,” he said. “It makes you sharper when you have competition.”

The mood is starkly different in Kensington Market, where residents and businesses have been agitating for months against a separate plan to bring in a Loblaw’s grocery store.

Dominique Russell, an organizer with the community group, Friends of Kensington Market, said she was “horrified” to learn of the Walmart proposal. There’s a prevailing sense among residents that such development threatens the market’s character, she said.