Sobeys West may also move

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 07/02/2017 (3252 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

As preparations are being made to move the Sobeys in Brandon’s south end into Shoppers Mall, new digs are being eyed for the other Sobeys in the city.

A planned commercial redevelopment at the corner of 34th Street and Victoria Avenue — where Sobeys West is already located — proposes a “partial demolition of the existing Zellers and construction of a new Sobeys building,” according to a letter sent to nearby property owners last November.

The current Sobeys is located on the west side of the 118,000-sq.-ft. complex that once housed Zellers as well but is now vacant. The space has been used for temporary businesses, but has not been permanently occupied since discount store Fields shuttered operations in 2010.

In the initial plan for the redevelopment, released in 2015, the former Zellers was to be divvied up for as many as three tenants, and Sobeys would remain where it is.

However, in a conceptual plan published online last November for what has been dubbed WestVic Common, the words “Food Store” are written on top of the eastern side of the building — a unit notably larger than the current grocer, approximately 34,000 sq. ft.

Kevin Olson, vice-president of the Landstar Development Corporation, which owns the property, would not state Monday whether Sobeys intends to relocate to the other end of the building. He said they are in the “midst of negotiations” with the company, and nothing has been finalized.

He would not elaborate on the seemingly updated site plan, which suggests the main building would be subdivided into three units. Previously, the Sobeys was set to remain the anchor tenant on the west end and the former Zellers would be subdivided into three units, although owners were receptive to different size configurations.

The proposed redevelopment must still be approved by the city.

The letter suggesting a new Sobeys would be built was sent to property owners within a 100-metre radius of the shopping centre at 3409 Victoria Ave. In it, the owner wrote the redevelopment would, in phases, include the renovation of new building facade to existing buildings, new pad site buildings, new asphalt parking area, parking lot lighting, pedestrian connectivity and landscaping.

An open house was held on Dec. 1, and the project was “positively received,” Olson said.

Landstar, along with an affiliate company and Brandon-based real estate developer K&R Investments, are working on the project as a joint venture, The Brandon Sun wrote in 2015.

Colliers International is tasked with looking for potential tenants, but John Prall, vice-president of the firm in Winnipeg, said last week the project is on the “backburner.”

First, the owners need to work through “some of their major issues with respect to their main tenant that’s going to be in there,” said Prall, who refused to elaborate.

Sobeys moving to a bigger home would align with a stated intention of the company: offering customers more services.

That aim drove Sobeys to agree to relocate its south end location across 18th Street, into the space formerly occupied by Target.

“We have been opening a few larger stores in (Western Canada) and the customer response has been great,” Keri Scobie, a spokeswoman for Sobeys West, told The Brandon Sun last May when confirming the relocation to Shoppers Mall. “It allows us to offer a few more services and different things that we don’t have in the smaller stores.”

At the time, Scobie explained there has been a shift in philosophy at grocery stores, where more services are being offered under one roof.

On Monday, Scobie had no details to share on a possible relocation in Brandon’s west end because nothing has been finalized. She did not have a timeline on the Shoppers Mall opening, either.

» ifroese@brandonsun.com

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