More changes are coming to the Downtown Chatham Centre.
Owner Dan Warrener says he expects sales revenues to decline at malls everywhere because of online shopping. So now he’s giving the community other reasons to visit.
“We have the double-decker bus being setup within the next month. That’s going to be a fish and chips and soft ice cream wagon that’s going to be right on King St. in front of Sears,” says Warrener. “The other thing we’re going to have in place is we’re building a skating rink there for ages 12 and under.”
Jurassic Fantastic Party Headquarters is opening up inside the mall in about six weeks. And while he can’t get into details, Warrener says he is in talks with a restaurant and a grocery store.
Takes money to make money……and Dan has it.
He also combines great entrepreneurial spirit – congrats!
If there was anyone who could bring business back downtown it’d be Dan. Kudos to him. Although I don’t see a grocery store being the best possible option for retail space in the mall, it would certainly get people in the door.
Don’t worry Brian there have been ‘talks” with Loblaws, No Frills, and many others over the years all of which have flatly said no. There is a panic to fill the hole after Sportschek leaves that’s all, maybe a new Theatre should be proposed. After all Dan Warrener was on the Capital Theatre Association board, maybe he can work his magic again!
Sportchek is apparently not the only store leaving, a retail store and one of the restaurants are slated to be out by year end as well. Take into consideration that Sears are closing outlets across Canada, the Union Gas renters are only there for a few years, and that Goodlife is quietly looking, and on-line shopping trends could be the least of the worries Warrener will have. Hope they can pull it off, but I think the only dinosaur that is on King Street for now is the Downtown Chatham Centre business model. Better hope Victor starts digging soon, god knows that another 100,000 square feet of retail space will solve all of downtowns problems.
Hang on a sec… downtown mall rule #1 is that NOTHING can happen OUTSIDE the mall. The goal of downtown malls worldwide is to force people (and their money) to come INSIDE the mall, thereby putting all their downtown neighbours out of business. The skating rink and fish bus will have to move inside now.
Glad to hear about all the new venues. Best of luck with it all.