Interesting Neighbour.

I took a trip up to the Blairmore Suburban Centre today to check on the progress of the construction going on there.  One of the stores was having its sign put on, and this revealed that it will be a location of a chain new to Saskatoon, Bulk Barn. Bulk Barn is a bulk food store.  I find it interesting that it will be on the same property as the west side Walmart Supercenter, which includes a full service grocery.  They're apparently confident in their ability to compete with the famed retaling giant, and it will be interesting to see what impact they have on each other.  I don't imagine Walmart's operating style is flexible enough to say heavily increase their bulk food offerings to counter Bulk Barn.

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.

Wal Mart in Canada is trying an experiment. Until 6 pm on Christmas Eve 9 Wal Mart stores will stay open 24 hours a day. One of them is the Saskatoon Preston Crossing outlet. Personally I doubt Saskatoon is currently a good market for the idea. There aren't enough shift workers who would be interested in shopping at 2 in the morning to provide enough regular customers. It doesn't help that the Preston Crossing store is located a bit out of the way for a casual shopper in the middle of the night to just drop in.

One of the things that the city needs to consider when updating its bus routes next year is improving service to Preston Crossing. Currently only two routes service the area, 22 and 27, and 27 only runs on a full schedule while the University of Saskatchewan is in regular session. The last bus out to Preston is 6:30 PM, limiting access to anyone who doesn't have an automobile, including employees of the stores at Preston Crossing. There should be more routes that access Preston Crossing more often. A route that connects the bus mall at the Centre at Circle and 8th to Preston Crossing would probably be a good idea, as residents of the east side of Saskatoon currently have to go downtown or to Place Riel on the University of Saskatchewan campus to catch a bus out there. The existing bus stops up there either need to have bus shelters installed or be moved closer to the actual stores.