A Cloudy Future.

Yesterday I was up at Confederation Mall, located on Saskatoon's west side. Walking into Wal Mart it was obvious something was up. The store was short of a large amount of merchandise, and various fixtures were in the process of being moved. In other words it's quite obvious the store is being closed. A new and significantly larger Wal Mart is opening on the west side at the Blairmore Suburban Centre, making the current store obsolete. This of course brings up the question of the fate of Confederation Mall. Wal Mart has been a major draw to that mall for the last 15 years. It's hard to think of a new tenant that might take up that space given the rise of big box shopping areas in Saskatoon, which are likely to be more appealing to such a tenant. There are still of course various stores present, including a Safeway, but are they enough to keep customers coming? Confederation Mall does have the advantage of being one of the major Saskatoon Transit hubs on the west side, so perhaps that will help the mall survive.