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Gronk! said:
I honestly had no idea that a food court would still be existing in Scotia Place Rice Howard Place after the renovations were done.

There's already a sushi kiosk in the Commerce Place food court, therefore the likely best place for Sushi Niwa would be ECC.
Or Stantec, assuming they'll ever get their food court up and running.
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Sushi-Ya and Sushi Niwa (The Commerce Place one) were running at the same time for quite a while. There's also an Edo Japan in Commerce Place, so another place for sushi would cannibalize the consumer base.
 
In my opinion, it will not take very long for Scotia's food court to fail. Too late to the game. If I'd owned Scotia, I'd have completely mothballed the basement commercial space, and just maintained the LRT connection passageway. Being connected to Commerce Place, Scotia gets the amenity of food services without the management and leasing headache. It's just easier.
 
Honestly? Most of the patrons went out of their way to the Scotia Place food court because of Chicken For Lunch.
 
^ & ^^, I hear what you're saying. However, my general thought process is that keeping a food court operational in a project the size of Scotia, not to mention its historical above-market vacancy rate, is not a long term recipe for success. Office building food courts are under pressure almost everywhere, and my perception is that Scotia's food court viability is under particular stress or pressure.

If Scotia is able to pull it off, they would deserve a huge high five. If I were a betting man though, regrettably my wager would go elsewhere.
 
The recent trend in office space has been a flight to quality space with good on-site amenities. Maybe they want to keep the food court as part of their amenity package. Otherwise I agree... just not enough traffic at any of these buildings to have a dedicated food court/cafeteria.
 
Alot of this institutional money needs to learn that property located in an area with zero residential is at a huge risk. They can either be part of the solution by constructing multi use on site, or accept lower vacancies and overall values.

All of the downtown action in Edmonton is where people have dwellings, and that isn't changing.
 
Offworld said:
In my opinion, it will not take very long for Scotia's food court to fail. Too late to the game. If I'd owned Scotia, I'd have completely mothballed the basement commercial space, and just maintained the LRT connection passageway. Being connected to Commerce Place, Scotia gets the amenity of food services without the management and leasing headache. It's just easier.
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I went by yesterday and it looks like the Scotia renovations are coming along and the food area on the main level is close to being done. Scotia has a huge main floor space that was underutilized.

So it makes sense to have something on the main level as a lot of the space was empty before and it may get more traffic as is is easier to get to and more visible.

While me may not yet back to where we were pre COVID there is an increasing number of people downtown regularly and more often, so while the Scotia renovation was disruptive it might have been a good time to do it. No reason we can't have more food areas downtown again, although Commerce Place which did its renos several years early seems to be doing well now.
 
Great to see so many places PACKED yesterday for the game and Downtown feeling very un-Sunday-like. It's a good reminder that we must keep creating meaningful reasons for folks to come Downtown and to really expand our Downtown population to see this more often.

IMG_5024.JPG
 
Offworld said:
^ & ^^, I hear what you're saying. However, my general thought process is that keeping a food court operational in a project the size of Scotia, not to mention its historical above-market vacancy rate, is not a long term recipe for success. Office building food courts are under pressure almost everywhere, and my perception is that Scotia's food court viability is under particular stress or pressure.

If Scotia is able to pull it off, they would deserve a huge high five. If I were a betting man though, regrettably my wager would go elsewhere.
Click to expand...
Chicken for Lunch departing has also cost them probably more than 50% of their clientele. I personally was never that blown away by the food, but I can't deny they had a cult following.

My pipe dream fantasy would be Sushi Niwa re-opening as a standalone in West Edmonton. We are pretty short on restaurants outside of the Mall.
 
policyenthusiast said:
Chicken for Lunch departing has also cost them probably more than 50% of their clientele. I personally was never that blown away by the food, but I can't deny they had a cult following.

My pipe dream fantasy would be Sushi Niwa re-opening as a standalone in West Edmonton. We are pretty short on restaurants outside of the Mall.
Click to expand...

Chicken For Lunch was vastly overrated if you ask me.
 
I only went the once and it was quick, cheap, and, most of all, i didn't have to make a decision because as soon as I hesitated, I was given a nice selection and boom! sent on my way :D. I could use that sort of service at other places where I find myself staring at the menu with the quiet desperation of the chronically decision-challenged.
 
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