Lease cancelled for proposed grocery store in Saskatoon's Midtown mall: developer
CBC
The developer behind a proposed grocery store in Saskatoon's downtown mall now says it isn't going to happen.
Arbutus Properties, the development company that owns the Pitchfork Market + Kitchen brand, said in a news release Thursday it had received "an unexpected lease termination notice" from the mall's owners on Monday.
"We were shocked and disappointed that we can't proceed," said Jeffrey Drexel, Arbutus Properties president.
Midtown administration did not reply to multiple requests for comment Thursday.
Drexel said the company had secured a 10-year lease with an option for a 10-year extension, but it had a stipulation that the store had to be complete by January 2024.
Arbutus was not going to be able to meet the deadline. The developer said Thursday it didn't expect the store to be ready until sometime in the summer or fall of 2024. The company had hinted at an earlier completion date in the project's early stages.
The release from Arbutus Thursday blamed the delays on the extra time and resources the developer put toward its affordable housing development in Saskatoon's Rosewood neighbourhood. That development experienced its own turbulence after the city rejeted a request from Arbutus to start construction before finishing required sewer upgrades.
According to a news release earlier this week, the sewer infrastructure was later completed and the affordable housing construction is expected to be completed and occupied in early 2024.
But Drexel said that while the delay may have initially been related to the housing development, it is more dependent on properly constructing the grocery store and fine-tuning it for long-term use.
"This is a 20-year lease, right? We're not talking about two years here. We've got to get this right," he said.
Drexel said Arbutus proposed delaying construction until January 2024, along with some other changes to the lease agreement to accommodate that.
He said those changes included asking Midtown to defer rent payments from before the store's completion to after it was operating, and getting Midway to agree not to cancel the lease midway through construction because Arbutus hadn't met the original agreement.
Instead of a counter-proposal, he said, Midtown Plaza responded with a notice to terminate the lease. Drexel would not share the notice or the proposal sent to Midtown administration, citing legal concerns.
"I can't put words in their mouths, but we kind of expected they would work with us in some capacity," he said.
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