Four more grocery stores needed downtown: study

Downtown Edmonton needs at least four more major grocery stores to serve its growing population, says a new study.

The city’s urban core bounded by 107th Avenue, the Quarters, the North Saskatchewan River and 124th Street are served by only three major food retailers — Lucky 97 in Chinatown; Save-On-Foods at 109th Street and Safeway on 104th Avenue, said Grocery Stores in Canadian Urban Centres, a study by the University of Alberta’s School of Retailing. The study examined grocery store coverage in seven Canadian cities.

“One thing that we found in general is to make an urban area truly walkable and truly urban, grocery stores are often ideally within 500 metres of a person’s residence,” said Craig Patterson, the school’s head of applied research.

“That’s roughly a five-minute walk and if you make it more than that, people are going to be inclined to use their cars.”

Downtown Edmonton requires at least four more grocery stores larger than 10,000 square feet, the study said. Gaps in Edmonton’s urban-core grocery-store coverage were identified for the areas of Jasper Avenue and 118th Street; Jasper Avenue and 114th Street; 102nd Avenue and 96th Street and the Rossdale area.

Some new food retailers are already on the way. A new Planet Organic Market is under construction on Jasper Avenue and 122nd Street while a Loblaws City Market is planned for 104th Avenue and 121st Street.

The study said a lack of access to healthy food choices provided by major food stores is linked to disease and earlier deaths.

Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal had exceptional inner-city grocery store coverage, the study said. It acknowledged there are challenges for grocery retailers operating in urban cores such as more difficult merchandise deliveries, higher numbers of low-income customers and lack of parking spaces.

Patterson said retailers tend to go where the people are, so it’s key to attract more downtown residents.