# Urban-oriented retail in your city



## LtBk (Jul 27, 2004)

Show examples of urban-oriented big-box stores and supermarkets.


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## Slartibartfas (Aug 15, 2006)

Urban stores or only giga ultra stores that manage a minimum of urban feel?


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## LtBk (Jul 27, 2004)

Both would be fine.


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## 009 (Nov 28, 2007)

I think that's more suburban retail


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## milano123 (Nov 9, 2013)

thanks for the nice sharing and info....have a nice day


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## isaidso (Mar 21, 2007)

Loblaws is Canada's biggest grocery chain. They recently converted an old hockey arena, Maple Leaf Gardens, into their flagship outlet. It's located in the heart of downtown Toronto. It was designed to be both respectful of the historic building and to appeal to the tastes of urbanites. It offers great selection, but also lots of convenient food options for a target market that's picky and time constrained.

*The exterior*

















Courtesy of blogto



*The interior*

















Courtesy of The Toronto Sun




























Courtesy of blogspot


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## Minato ku (Aug 9, 2005)

Okabe (Paris, Kremlin Bicetre).
This mall opened in 2010 has an Auchan hypermarket of 11,200 m² (120,600 sq ft) as main anchor.

It is located on a dense busy avenue with already a lot of stores and served by the metro.
Hypermarkets are usually suburban big box (with a mall or not) surrounded by parkings, this kind of mixed use development is quite rare in France. 
The upper floors of the building are office space.








Inside the hypermarket, there is no difference with a suburban hypermarket big box.


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## LtBk (Jul 27, 2004)

isaidso said:


> Loblaws is Canada's biggest grocery chain. They recently converted an old hockey arena, Maple Leaf Gardens, into their flagship outlet. It's located in the heart of downtown Toronto. It was designed to be both respectful of the historic building and to appeal to the tastes of urbanites. It offers great selection, but also lots of convenient food options for a target market that's picky and time constrained.
> 
> *The exterior*
> 
> ...


Looks like Canadian equivalent of Wegmans.


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## GENIUS LOCI (Nov 18, 2004)

LtBk said:


> Show examples of urban-oriented big-box stores and supermarkets.


The first which come to my mind is Centro Commerciale Portello in Milan

https://maps.google.it/?ll=45.49099...g1NIKgiTUf-W0CjVjUpoLQ&cbp=12,143.49,,0,-8.81


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## isaidso (Mar 21, 2007)

LtBk said:


> Looks like Canadian equivalent of Wegmans.


Any photos?


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## LtBk (Jul 27, 2004)




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## isaidso (Mar 21, 2007)

Looks like they're doing alright.


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## Slartibartfas (Aug 15, 2006)

No offense intended but that Wegman looks fairly disneylandish, cheap, while the loblaws flagship store is a really successful conversion with almost stylish design, true to the original building. Judged purely on their aesthetics there is really no comparison between both.


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## LtBk (Jul 27, 2004)

It's not that bad in real life. There is one near my home that I go to sometimes. Maybe it's the pictures? I forget to mention that Wegmans doesn't have any urban-oriented stores, although there is one that's going to be built in Boston.


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## isaidso (Mar 21, 2007)

I have to admit, when you said Loblaws was the Canadian equivalent of Wegmans I was expecting something a lot nicer.


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## LtBk (Jul 27, 2004)

Wegmans is the only one I can come up with when it comes to high-end supermarkets. I admit Loblaws looks better too.


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## Slartibartfas (Aug 15, 2006)

I might have been to a Wegman, I am not sure, or it was something similar. Maybe it is just me, but I simply can't stand those disneylandish fake facades in shopping malls. Especially when they look as artificial, fake and cheap as in those pictures above.


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## Jonesy55 (Jul 30, 2004)

Smaller format urban stores is something most of the big supermarket chains have been rolling out in big numbers in the past 5-6 years here


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## isaidso (Mar 21, 2007)

Do you have any UK examples for us to see?


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## 009 (Nov 28, 2007)

The Loblaws in your pics looks nice, the ones I went to in Montreal were more average looking as far as I can remember


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## isaidso (Mar 21, 2007)

009 said:


> The Loblaws in your pics looks nice, the ones I went to in Montreal were more average looking as far as I can remember


Yes, Loblaws is trying to up its game due to the cutthroat competition in the grocery industry. The flagship store I posted is their test store and only opened a couple years ago. They plan to take the best attributes from this store and attempt to duplicate it over their entire network. I doubt they'll all look as nice as this one, but you never know. This is a very big company and a lot is at stake. 

Walmart, Sobeys, and Metro are all good operators and it's only going to get harder with Target recently arriving. Below is what a regular Loblaws looks like:


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## Jonesy55 (Jul 30, 2004)

isaidso said:


> Do you have any UK examples for us to see?


I'll have a look for some pics, might even take some!

In the mean time, here is the UK store portfolio of Tesco, the biggest chain here










'Extra' stores are their giant, edge of town big box hypermarkets selling everything.

'Superstores' are their standard suburban supermarkets with car parks etc 

'Metro' are usually in bigger city centre locations, don't often have any car parking.

'Express' are neighbourhood convenience stores, often in small shopping rows located in local high streets or mid density residential areas, they might have a few parking spaces or some nearby on-street parking but most customers will probably arrive on foot.

Most of the other major chains have equivalents of those formats.

There was a Metro in central Birmingham that I used to go to sometimes and there are a couple of Express stores here in Shrewsbury in addition to the big 'Extra' on the edge of town.


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## isaidso (Mar 21, 2007)

Those urban stores are much smaller than I expected. Is that because large spaces are very difficult to find in British city cores? For instance, the Maple Leaf Gardens Loblaw I posted is 85,000 square feet.


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## Jonesy55 (Jul 30, 2004)

You do find big stores in town and city centres, but they tend to be department stores, clothing stores etc rather than supermarkets. The supermarket strategy in urban areas seems to be providing a large number of smaller stores in so that they are in close proximity to the maximum number of people whether at home or at work. They are aimed at people picking up a small basket of goods on foot rather than people doing enough shopping for a family for two weeks which would require a car to get it all home.

For larger quantities of shopping there are either the suburban stores with parking or increasingly internet ordering with subsequent delivery. Most of the big supermarkets have online services with delivery across most of the country.


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## isaidso (Mar 21, 2007)

We have those mini-grocery formats as well. The big box grocery stores in the core tend to have underground parking. There are a few with surface parking, but that land will soon become too valuable and we'll likely see all parking underground eventually. The condos downtown work the same way. There's usually 3-6 levels of underground parking beneath every tower.

Even in the core, people still use their cars. We're an extremely car centric culture and it will take a generation to change that.


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## Slartibartfas (Aug 15, 2006)

What I missed in Ireland but also in some other countries were well sorted mid sized local supermarkets. I am not talking about small snacks, sweets and alcohol centred stores. I am talking about compact full sortiment stores. Of course, you won't find 36 yoghurt flavours there, but you'll find every basic ingredient + some more. 

I think the US and the UK are somewhat similar in this regard. 


Urban markets are possible in all sorts of sizes. In Vienna big supermarkets are also quite popular in fully urban settings. But outright hypermarkets are either integrated in small urban shopping centres or are of the classic suburban kind in the periphery. The bigger supermarkets usually have underground parking, smaller ones might have parking but many don't, except for the usual street parking. 

In the newer railwaystation malls it has become a popular thing to create hypermarkets with separate but nearby compact markets nearby.


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## Jonesy55 (Jul 30, 2004)

That's one thing that the rollout of small format stores in recent years by the big supermarkets has actually improved here, most carry a pretty good range of products whereas many of the independent convenience stores or franchise badged stores often give 40% of the store over to booze with most of the rest as snacks and a few token fresh food items that never look very appetising anyway.

I quite often pop into the 'Little Waitrose' store in the town centre here on my way home from the train station and they have most things I need despite being of limited size. I'm not generally a huge fan of the big supermarket chains but that is one positive thing they are doing.


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## Manila-X (Jul 28, 2005)

Hypermarkets are very common not just in Metro Manila but other major Philippine cities such as Cebu.

SM Hypermarket









Shopwise


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## Svartmetall (Aug 5, 2007)

^^ I don't think that's what they are asking for. Everywhere has large box retail like that surrounded by car parks. I think the OP was asking for retail that is normally in a box retail format but has been integrated into the urban fabric.


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## LtBk (Jul 27, 2004)

Pretty much.


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## techniques1200s (Mar 11, 2005)

Slartibartfas said:


> What I missed in Ireland but also in some other countries were well sorted mid sized local supermarkets. I am not talking about small snacks, sweets and alcohol centred stores. I am talking about compact full sortiment stores. Of course, you won't find 36 yoghurt flavours there, but you'll find every basic ingredient + some more.
> 
> I think the US and the UK are somewhat similar in this regard.


There's gotta be decent number of those types of stores in the UK though? You can definitely find small and mid-sized local stores in tons of US cities. Large national chains are where the majority of people go, but in many cities it's very possible to get everything you need without ever setting foot in one. Here are some examples of small/mid-sized local markets in San Francisco, which has plenty of them:

mid-sized:





































^ that last one is part of a local west Bay Area chain. 

small-sized:














































And here are some small ones that focus mainly on produce and fresh meat/seafood and such:




























^those last two are part of a chain of stores in SF only.

Of course there are far more stores (corner stores/liquor stores/convenience stores/bodegas...whatever you want to call them) that mostly sell an assortment of liqour, beer, snacks, soda, cigarettes, frozen food, etc. Many of them have small selections of dairy/produce/non-edible groceries (shampoo, laundry detergent, etc), but plenty don't, and it's often not great quality. Though one thing that many liquor/corner stores and actual grocery stores share in SF, is the presence of a deli. You can get some of the best sandwiches in the city in grungy-looking little liquor stores that you would never guess even have fresh food, let alone a good deli inside. As far as I know, outside of SF that set-up is a pretty uncommon thing here in the US.


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## Jonesy55 (Jul 30, 2004)

Yeah, you can find them in most places alongside the booze and snacks type stores, some areas are better served than others though...


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## isaidso (Mar 21, 2007)

Looks like SF mirrors what you'll find in Canadian cities.


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## Slartibartfas (Aug 15, 2006)

Yes you can most certainly find some of these compact local stores with a solid sortiment. But maybe it is just that I am used to a denser net of those stores. In Vienna you have very few independent stores left but the big chains actually have a very dense coverage with a mix of small and medium sized stores. The kind of booze'n more stores are basically limited to petrol stations.


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## Svartmetall (Aug 5, 2007)

In Sweden you get a dense network of mid-sized and large supermarkets in the city centre and in the suburbs too that are integrated into the bottom of buildings. You also get big box retail - like Clas Ohlson, Media Markt etc with urban stores with limited to no parking built in the same way in the city. I can find some picture examples later.


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## Galro (Aug 9, 2010)

Norwegians love malls and we have during the last five years or so started to put these precious malls in a somewhat urban layout in the middle of our town centers. I'm not sure if it count as urban-oriented as such though, as they still retain the insular nature of ordinary malls with little concerns for its surroundings, but at least it is built following a urban grid. It is also quite common to put a few apartment buildings on top of them. 

Examples: 

- Ski mall
- Sandvika mall
- Moss mall
- Sandefjord mall 
- Arendal mall
- Jessheim mall


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## LtBk (Jul 27, 2004)

In Baltimore, urban-oriented retail is very rare. Suburban, auto-centric retail dominates the central city.


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## Svartmetall (Aug 5, 2007)

Here are a few examples of urban oriented retail that would be "big box" in the city centre:

One supermarket in the "outer inner city"

Big box store selling odds and ends.

Supermarket

Supermarket again.

More supermarkets.

Urban mall on top of a metro station

Supermarket and shopping centre.

Urban shopping centre at the bottom of this building.

Another shopping mall.

Suburban shopping centre built around a more urban layout above a metro station.

Yep, lots of supermarkets around Stockholm built like this. They are often on every few blocks in the city centre. Most suburban shopping areas are built over metro stations in the suburbs, but it's not true "car-centric" retail. We have that too.


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## GENIUS LOCI (Nov 18, 2004)

^^
These kind of stores are quite common in Europe; in Italy as well

Here some Supermarkets in Milan 
https://www.google.com/maps?ll=45.4...u4KmKnE0VfO0Md5uw&cbp=12,182.18,,0,-1.08&z=18

https://www.google.com/maps?ll=45.4...3j1PSzVGJ1kkKWYivgw&cbp=12,25.67,,0,0.52&z=18

https://www.google.com/maps?ll=45.4...NM_unj23WN8MYK4tA&cbp=12,171.92,,0,-8.86&z=18

https://www.google.com/maps?ll=45.4...SreQsc9ZgoYgLQaAA&cbp=12,339.86,,0,-4.41&z=17

https://www.google.com/maps?ll=45.4...wmvUp4rsaDvN1_Qevg&cbp=12,76.41,,0,-4.69&z=17

https://www.google.com/maps?ll=45.4...1CbfQ9gCeAkHfZ94FbQ&cbp=12,115.6,,0,3.47&z=17

https://www.google.com/maps?ll=45.4...ZyY-uZS_tJWHNV8CQ&cbp=12,22.94,,0,-12.42&z=17

https://www.google.com/maps?ll=45.4...HsFsSbuvOG0idJNVXw&cbp=12,21.21,,0,-4.08&z=17

A couple of urban oriented shopping malls

https://www.google.com/maps?ll=45.4...sWLlOmtI38-PXCyw&cbp=12,163.09,,0,-14.58&z=17

https://www.google.com/maps?ll=45.5...-UsnNDPpmwXLVEi5A&cbp=12,162.07,,0,-9.14&z=17

https://www.google.com/maps?ll=45.4...CpyGCKrm16K1FVwVQ&cbp=12,158.15,,0,-9.42&z=18


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