VIDEO: The East Village Retail Story

VIDEO: EV's Retail Story from the Developing Partners

Curious as to what the future of retail spaces will look like in East Village? See what the presidents and CEO’s of some of the developing partners had to say about the retail story that’s developing in EV.

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Michael Brown – President & CEO, CMLC

“CMLC’s retail vision was really born out of what does a successful community need to have. If you’re going to live in East Village, what do you need to have access to? They need to have access to grocery stores, they need to have access to restaurants, they need the coffee shops, they need the drugs stores. Those are all things that people are looking for, so it’s really centred on the residents.”

Ed Sonshine - CEO, RioCan

“Young and old people moving into an actual urban environment, and number one, we had a pressure from our tenants, they basically said, we don’t have any stores down there, what are we going to do?”

Ryan Bosa – President, Embassy Bosa

“East Village is the most well thought out and progressive master plan in Calgary and because of that it’s like the tip of the spear and so there are other master plan communities coming, but this is the first one that’s proven itself out and proven a new way of development in Calgary. So the grocery store here, it makes sense that this is the first place to have it.”

Ed Sonshine, CEO, RioCan

“The advantage of having a grocery store right in the community, particularly, pedestrian friendly, and of the quality that I know we are going to have here is a big push. A lot of it’s, you know, going back to the past – fresh food, fresh baked bread, everything fresh. Well, if you have it right in your community and handy, you don’t necessarily shop once a week, you shop every day.”

Ryan Bosa – President, Embassy Bosa

“200,000 square feet of retail below your feet is massive and it shows the direction of where cities are going where you’re having people living right next to where they’re working and right next to where their amenities are.”

Ed Sonshine - CEO, RioCan

“This was an idea that certain city planners had a long time ago, because it takes you back to what cities used to be when they were small and they’re like in Europe in many cases and that European model is something I think that always appealed to people. I’m not sure what came first, the understanding that people want to live, work and play without using their car, or the whole concept of running on a land and it’s neither environmentally or people friendly for people that have 1 or 2 hour commutes or more.”

Ryan Bosa – President, Embassy Bosa

“More seen in Calgary and what we’ve seen in east village especially is people trade in their commute for a lifestyle. People trading the time in their car for being social and being interactive with others. This is all a part of smart growth, it’s about being very close, it’s about lifestyle, it’s about being healthy, it’s about being close to parks, walking to your restaurant, to work, and it’s the interactions you have with people in the spaces in between the buildings which gets me really excited about urban growth.”

Michael Brown – President & CEO, CMLC

“In addition to obviously Loblaws and RioCan coming in east village we also have a number of other retailers that have opened up and actually are doing quite well. Red bloom has opened up their business within East Village. We have Merle Norman that’s opened up, we have a dry cleaner coming in place, heard rumours about getting a wine store, were going to get some coffee shops and we also have the Simmons building itself which has three local heroes. So our retail vision is really starting to come together which is fantastic.”

Ed Sonshine, CEO, RioCan

“You don’t want to have the feel or look of a place where well I got to go buy some vegetables so I got to go to the supermarket. If you do it all right, and with Loblaw, they will do it right, and with us, it’ll be the kind of complex where you leave when you feel like leaving and not because you have to leave, and I think that makes a great environment for everybody.”

More on East Village 

See everything there is to know about the community at East Village: Projects, News and Everything Else today.

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See a video showing the New Central Library's Exterior Coming to Life here.

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