Rooted in Retail: How we’re using our retail expertise to build better cities 

Source: SmartCentres Blog

Mac and Cheese, Ben and Jerry, Bert and Ernie – you can’t have one without the other. It wouldn’t be right; it wouldn’t make sense. In that same vein, what’s a mixed-use community without a retail component? Exactly. It’s time to add another classic combo to the list: Mixed-use communities and retail.  

While SmartCentres REIT evolves From Shopping Centres To City Centres, there will always be something that never changes, and never gets lost – Retail is at the core of what we do. It has always been. Since opening our very first Canadian Walmart in 1994, providing Canadians across the country with value and convenience-oriented retail has been at the core of our business and our mission.  

That’s why we continue to prioritize essential retail in the ethos of every mixed-use, master planned community we design and build. You can’t have a complete mixed-use community without convenient and attractive retail options for its residents.  

So how exactly do we strategically integrate retail into our communities?  

Ready, Set, Integrate 

It starts with the master plan. Our mixed-use communities are built for everyone – whether you work there, live there or are just visiting to enjoy the park or take a selfie next to the public art on site.  . We plan every square foot holistically to make sure a strong retail presence is seamlessly integrated and built to meet the evolving needs of the each community. 

Maybe it’s a coffee shop at the base of your condo tower for a quick jolt on the way to work, or a retail high street to check all those errands off your list at once – we  curate specific retail tenants to fit the needs and wants of those who will benefit the most – the community. 

Future Forward Solutions 

Many of our shopping centres are grocery-anchored, ensuring that residents in our communities can access what they need conveniently and efficiently.  

While this remains true for our mixed-use communities, it might look a little bit different. We’re infusing our communities with creative uses of space to seamlessly integrate retail into mixed-use towers. These master-planned developments will still have grocery anchors but are being adapted for a pedestrian focus. Rather than a weekly grocery haul, residents will experience the convenience of grabbing fresh and crisp ingredients for tonight’s stir-fry as they pass the grocery store down the street from their home. 

 Thanks to our decades of retail experience and longstanding partnerships, we are working closely and collaboratively with our retail partners to proactively incorporate them into our master-planned communities. These partnerships are the backbone of our business and will continue to be a key differentiator for our mixed-use communities moving forward.  

With the launch of our residential sub-brand, SmartLiving, we’re building apartments, towns, condos, seniors’ residences and hotels – but our roots have always been in retail. Our mission has always stemmed from a passion to deliver a better, more convenient future for all Canadians. It’s a promise that our Executive Chairman and CEO Mitchell Goldhar made to Canadians in 1989, and it’s a promise we intend to keep as we help build community-focused, urban-inspired, mixed-use City Centres.