From the
University District thread:
Maybe a little of it is COVID, I think a little more is the increase in online and delivery. But I think the underlying premise is wrong.
Here's retail (as well as wholesale) and hospitality (dining and hotels) employment as a percentage of total employment, for Calgary and other CMAs:
View attachment 544558
Retail in Calgary has been lower than other CMAs, and has had a bit of a roller coaster ride. We're currently at the low end of where we've been over the past 17 years, but we were at a high just a year ago. The longer term trend (visible in the multi-CMA data) is for a very slow decline; a little under 0.1% per year; that to me feels like the broad industry trends.
Hospitality shows a clear COVID effect (and shows I think just noise in the data as far as Calgary goes). That's a real COVID trend, although it's recovered halfway since then.
The mix hasn't changed wildly, either. Here's the share of total employment in 2016 and 2021 in Calgary for retail and allied industries:
View attachment 544625
The restaurant sector has taken a massive hit; so has accommodation (this is May 2021, so there has been some recovery since then.) Food and pharmacy are up a little; some of this is probably compensating for less restaurant. Clothing and hobby stores are down while internet (non-store retailers) is up. Miscellaneous store is also up; that includes cannabis.
I think that the original premise (University City is the only retail development we've seen in the past few years) isn't true. What's happened is that instead of enclosed shopping malls or massive big box centres, there's more smaller community shopping being built. When completed, University City will have 300,000 sq ft of retail; maybe 150K-200K of this has been built so far?
Right now University City offers: grocery, liquor, cannabis, pharmacy, 13 restaurants, coffee/tea, ice cream, bakery, bank, 2 fitness, 2 hair, nails, wax, walk-in clinic, pet food, 3 optometry, dental, physio, childcare; plus a hotel, a Staples and the VIP movie theatre. Other than the last three, these are very standard daily necessity type places. No home goods, no boutiques, the only clothing store sells scrubs (since it's near two hospitals).
I present you
The Shops of Carrington Green - 86,000 square feet; grocery, liquor, cannabis, pharmacy, 6 restaurants, 2 coffee/tea, ice cream, bakery, 2 fitness, barber, nails, spa, walk-in clinic, vet, pet food, optometry, dental, physio, childcare. Entirely built since mid 2021.
I present you
Sage Hill Forum - 175,000 square feet; grocery, liquor, pharmacy, cannabis, 9 restaurants, 2 coffee/tea, ice cream, 3 fitness, 2 hair, nails, walk-in clinic, vet, pet food, optometry, dental, physio, childcare; still 10 or so CRUs left. Built 2018-2021.
I present you
Highstreet at Cornerstone - 141,000 square feet; grocery, liquor, pharmacy, 5 restaurants, coffee/tea, 2 banks, Dollarama, hair, physio, dental, optometry, childcare; still 13 CRUs left. Built since mid 2021.
There are a bunch more; I'm just looking at the north end. None of these places have been mentioned ever on this forum; they're mostly very standard glorified strip malls (the first two have condos attached; the Sage Hill one is actually pretty nice as far as these things go). They're so anonymous here, I've deliberately put the name of one of them down wrong and I'm guessing you probably never noticed. But other than the movie theatre, the hotel and the Staples, they're offering more or less the same stuff as University City. The dining isn't quite as strong, and the brand names at University City are certainly fancier, but they're not that far off.
In a way, it's actually a positive trend. These are not gems of urban design, but at least they're smaller rather than the days of Westhills where there are four supermarkets all basically in the same retail node and then nothing in the surrounding communities. It'd be better to have walkable communities, but if they have to be built car-forward, at least having these smaller shopping nodes means more 1 km drives and less 5 km ones.
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