Blog Updates: May 2020

Hi everyone, this post addresses some housekeeping things for this blog. Sorry for not posting frequently on here. Lately, I've really busy and therefore lacked motivation to post anything on here. But now thanks to what's been going on recently, I have more time to do this blog and decided to take this blog more seriously and to make posts again.

Posting Schedule

I now have a schedule for posting things. I plan to post at least once a week on Tuesdays at 6:00pm ET a store facts post, or a plaza/mall facts post. My models will be posted monthly on my Tumblr page which is in the sidebar. I'll also post news on here when applicable. I hope you'll like this format and that it will solve the issue of erratic postings.

New branding

Also, I've simplified the name of the blog to DZ's Retail to reflect my name that I use elsewhere in the community. Along side this change comes a new logo that you can see on the home page.

Hope you'll enjoy the format. Expect a post to come later in the day.

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Lost Retail: The history of Knob Hill Farms

A picture of a Knob Hill basket. Credit: Wikipedia For today’s lost retail post I’ll be talking about an old, local chain of grocery stores called Knob Hill Farms. Knob Hill Farms was a chain of 10 warehouse-like “food terminals” in the Toronto area. These stores were pretty large for a supermarket at the time they operated ranging from 65,000 sqft to a gigantic 335,000 sqft. Due to financial issues, Knob Hill Farms closed/sold all their stores in 2000. History Knob Hill Farms was founded in 1954 by Steve Stavro as a more conventional grocery chain operating 9 markets in Toronto. It wasn’t until 1963 that Stravro opened his first 65,000 sqft “food terminal” in Markham. In 1971, Knob Hill Farms expanded into Pickering with its second terminal. Knob Hill Farms than opened their first Toronto store in 1975 and second Toronto terminal opened in 1977. Their fifth store, which was billed as the largest food store in North America at the time, opened in 1978 in Mississauga....

Lowe’s stores in Canada begin re-brand to Rona+

As you might know already, Lowe’s sold their Canadian division to a private equity company, Sycamore Partners, earlier this year. Rona then announced that the Lowe's stores will be gradually re-branded as Rona+. These conversions started at the end of July with 10 stores in Ontario. So far all they did was replace all the Lowe’s logos with Rona+ logos with the Lowe's decor remaining intact. What’s interesting about Rona+ is that some Lowe’s stores were converted from larger Rona stores. So in a way, this will go full circle at some locations. Hopefully this will be successful for Rona. Until the next post (hopefully it won’t be another 2 years), Dom

Abandoned Target stores: 5 years later

Today’s post will be covering a few well preserved Target stores that are still abandoned 5 years after the company left Canada. Some of these locations are still listed on Google Maps as closed if you look up Target. Many of those abandoned stores are located in dead malls or smaller community malls, which make them harder to re-tenant. Target: Cloverdale Mall-Toronto ON Credit: Google Maps You’re not fooling anyone. They only painted the store green in the last 2 years or so and the store never got a new tenant after Target left. This Target won’t get a new tenant anytime soon because there are plans to redevelop the mall and plus the former Target wing of the mall is dead. Target: Sherdan Centre- Mississauga ON Credit: Google Maps This Target hasn’t been touched since they left. It’s a nice treat to see if you are in the area. There are some noticeable label scars on the building. It’s one of the better preserved stores in the area. Target: South Oakville Centre- Oakville ON Cr...

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