(JENNIFER STAHN / iNFOnews.ca)
March 15, 2016 - 9:00 PM
KAMLOOPS - It’s been nearly a year since the now-defunct Target Canada closed up 133 stores across the country and while some store locations have painted over the red and refreshed the space with new business, that is not the case for the void left at Kamloops' Sahali Mall.
Ron Ehrenholz, managing broker for Colliers International in Kamloops, says there has been interest but no secured deals for the vacancy in the last year. He says it is simply the luck of the draw.
"I’ve had a couple of people that I’ve been talking to that are sort of sitting on the fence and deciding what they want to do or what they should do,” Ehrenholz says.
Agents and other companies are still considering sectioning off spaces within the former Target location and leasing from there.
Because it is a larger location, the city’s vacancy rate is higher than in previous years. According to data from Colliers, the rate for commercial space is 7.63 per cent — nearly double from 2014’s rate, which was just over four per cent.
With the large 128,000-square-foot location in Sahali, Colliers researcher Katie Martin says it's driven an uptick in the neighbourhoods commercial vacancy rate, which now sits at 10.2 per cent.
It’s not all bad news though, Ehrenholz says. While a higher vacancy rate can bring its own issues, it does mean if a larger corporation plans to come to the city there will be a ready-made spot for it instead of having to build new.
As for the rest of the Interior, Ehrenholz says the former Kelowna store was divided and leased while Canadian Tire is in the process of moving into the former space in Vernon’s Village Green Mall.
To contact a reporter for this story, email Glynn Brothen at gbrothen@infonews.ca, or call 250-319-7494. To contact the editor, email mjones@infonews.ca or call 250-718-2724.
News from © iNFOnews, 2016