Markyeg said:
Two new restaurants opening in the food court. An Indian joint in the old McDonalds space, and a burrito joint in the SW corner of the food court.
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Good news. Over the last decade, many buildings closed, downsized or didn't go ahead with their food areas, so right now there are really only two or three main food courts downtown.

City Centre is definitely the largest one downtown, especially when you also include the food and beverage places on the pedway level.

IMO McDonalds was foolish to close their locations downtown, but I suppose their old Commerce Place spot is still available if they eventually come to their senses.
 
I'm not too worried that the Basil Box space will remain empty tbh. My hypothesis is that shifts in food courts are usually the first sign of a mall's fortunes and we're doing better than we were in 2025.
 
Kosy123 said:
I'm not too worried that the Basil Box space will remain empty tbh. My hypothesis is that shifts in food courts are usually the first sign of a mall's fortunes and we're doing better than we were in 2025.
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Yes, that some chain from Toronto is having problems is unfortunate, this sort of thing happens, but it is not the only or main food place here.
 
Confirmed: Basil Box now closed, Shree and King Burrito opening soon

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AntonK said:
Hopefully we’ll see one downtown some day, but sadly it’ll be probably after all the other large cities get a downtown one.
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I hope that will not be the case, but that is in a nutshell a summary of the state of our downtown retail for the last several years. There is a very long list of things that other cities normally have downtown that we do not.
 
David A said:
I hope that will not be the case, but that is in a nutshell a summary of the state of our downtown retail for the last several years. There is a very long list of things that other cities normally have downtown that we do not.
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AntonK said:
Hopefully we’ll see one downtown some day, but sadly it’ll be probably after all the other large cities get a downtown one.
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If y'all read the article, the first store will be opened in London, ON. While their downtown does have some interesting things going on (mostly a proportionally higher amount of well preserved older buildings), it is also a much smaller, less dense, less populous and has far less workers than Edmonton's, all while also suffering from all the issues we complain in Edmonton: disorder, drug use, poor maintenance, etc, and with no end in sight, since they currently have almost no new developments of any kind under construction and only a couple proposed (that are unlikely to ever see the light of day).
If they can make it work there, I would not be surprised to see Edmonton get one, albeit I would expect that major and midsized cities without an Ikea would be prioritized (London, Kitchener, Regina, Saskatoon, Victoria) as well as other cities that have Pick-up and Planning locations (Kelowna, St. Catherines, Sherbrooke).
 
ChazYEG said:
If y'all read the article, the first store will be opened in London, ON. While their downtown does have some interesting things going on (mostly a proportionally higher amount of well preserved older buildings), it is also a much smaller, less dense, less populous and has far less workers than Edmonton's, all while also suffering from all the issues we complain in Edmonton: disorder, drug use, poor maintenance, etc, and with no end in sight, since they currently have almost no new developments of any kind under construction and only a couple proposed (that are unlikely to ever see the light of day).
If they can make it work there, I would not be surprised to see Edmonton get one, albeit I would expect that major and midsized cities without an Ikea would be prioritized (London, Kitchener, Regina, Saskatoon, Victoria) as well as other cities that have Pick-up and Planning locations (Kelowna, St. Catherines, Sherbrooke).
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White Oaks Mall is 5 mins off the 401 and nowhere near DT London. So an IKEA opening a smaller mall based store there would be similar to opening one at West Ed or Southgate.
 
Markyeg said:
White Oaks Mall is 5 mins off the 401 and nowhere near DT London. So an IKEA opening a smaller mall based store there would be similar to opening one at West Ed or Southgate.
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Correct. And purely based on the location of their existing store, I would put my money on Kingsway.
 
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