Walmart proposal near Kensington Market ‘not over’

The process for deciding if big-box behemoth Walmart can open beside Kensington Market “is not over,” says the developer that proposes to feature the discount retailer in a new Bathurst St. complex.

Ed Sonshine, chief executive of RioCan, the country’s largest real estate investment trust, declined to discuss in detail his reaction to city council passing a one-year freeze on new retail on that stretch of Bathurst.

“We will have plenty to say about it as it unfolds,” Sonshine said in a voicemail. “I don’t think the process is finished, that’s for sure. But I’ll let the politicians speak publicly for now.”

From Kensington Market to Gezi Park: Gentrification is a global force

Gezi Park in Istanbul has been making headlines for two weeks, tempting the West's fickle appetite for revolution. Last Monday, 50 protestors occupied the nine-acre park to confront demolition crews preparing to turn one of the last remaining green spaces in the city into a shopping mall. Three days later, their number had grown to 10,000.

Western media reports have followed a predictable pattern for anyone bred on the script written by the Arab Spring: an autocratic government, supported by militia thugs, are suppressing the people's demand for democracy. "Democracy" in this context is a messy, sticky term, but surely, like Justice Potter Stewart we will know it when we see it.

At a Packed Meeting, Kensington Market Says “No” to Walmart

There’s no doubt the City was expecting a fight at Thursday’s community consultation on a developer’s plan to build a three-storey shopping centre near Kensington Market’s western border. Even so, the size of the crowd was beyond anyone’s expectations. Inside the College Street United Church, people spilled out around the pews, into the lobby, and out onto the patio.

Walmart's Toronto Plan Raises Ire Of Kensington Market, Little Italy Residents

A Toronto resident has started a petition to keep Walmart from opening a location near two of the city’s most prominent, historic districts.

Shopping mall developer Rio-Can is planning a 130,000-square-foot mall for Bathurst Street on the western edge of the city’s downtown core, a few blocks away from both Kensington Market and Little Italy, that will feature Walmart as its anchor tenant.

Proposed Walmart near Kensington Market has residents fuming

It’s a retail drama that’s playing out across the continent: big box stores show up on the outskirts of town and mom and pop shops bitterly shutter their doors.

But what happens when the big stores try to move in downtown?

RioCan, the country’s largest real estate investment trust, has submitted plans to the city to build a three-storey retail complex downtown, just past the western fringe of Kensington Market.