It's been the talk of the town these past couple of months and now Humboldt residents have a visual idea of what the future shopping centre will look like.
Stromiga Real Estate Development purchased the Humboldt Mall property in December 2013 for $1.85 million.
"This is the kind of project we love," said Ron Benjamin, manager of Stromiga. Benjamin runs the family-owned redevelopment company with his brother, Steve.
"We've always liked taking properties that aren't doing well anymore, like dead malls, and revitalizing them," said Steve.
In 2008, Stromiga purchased the lackluster Sherwood Mall in Regina, an indoor plaza with very little foot traffic and overhauled it into large storefronts now called Rochdale Crossing.
They have the same plans for the Humboldt Mall, built in the mid-'80s which saw its heyday in that era but has since been on a steady decline, with a lessening customer base and high rental costs.
So what attracted the owners of Stromiga, who are based in Calgary and San Francisco, to a smaller community like Humboldt, Saskatchewan?
It was Avison-Young, the commercial real estate firm, who first told the Benjamin brothers about the mall that was up for sale.
"We jumped on it. [Avison-Young] knew these were the types of projects we liked, so they mentioned it to us and we said yes," Ron said.
The brothers made their first trip to Humboldt in January 2011 to scope out the current mall site and were pleased with what they saw in the city.
"It was obvious to us that things were happening here," said Steve. "People were moving out here, things were being built. We could tell that Humboldt was on the up and up," he added, explaining that during their first visit, the new hospital complex was in the process of being built and the Quill Centre was adding new stores, including Sobeys (which would open in 2012) and Tim Hortons.
"We knew this was the place for us," said Ron.
The brothers of Stromiga are emphatic that the redevelopment of the Humboldt Mall into a strip centre, which they plan to call Humboldt Commons, is a win-win for everyone.
"Little indoor malls just don't make sense anymore. No sense," said Steve. "The cost is too high because of the common area and when you're losing customers, it's just not financially feasible for the store owners anymore.""Big malls don't have this issue. They have a lot to offer their customers - tons of stores, movie theatres, food courts; there's a variety to do. But little indoor malls can't offer that," he continued.
Stromiga worked with Maxam Design International to create a working concept of what the Humboldt Commons shopping centre will look like, the current design being unveiled this past week.
"Of course, nothing is ever final. We could make changes here or there but this is what we're working toward," said Ron on the shopping centre's current design concept.
As mentioned in previous articles, the current layout will have Extra Foods and Red Apple as anchor stores; Red Apple Stores Inc. purchased the Bargain! Shop chain in 2013. Humboldt is one of the last locations in Canada to convert its location into a Red Apple.
All the stores will be moved to the front of the strip centre as large storefronts, with the dollar store undergoing the biggest change, since it's nearly doubling in size on the west side of the mall.
Thirteen rental townhouses will be constructed behind the shopping centre, where the current back part of the mall is, along 9th Avenue.
The Extra Foods Gas Bar will remain in its current spot, and two other pad sites, a restaurant and an anticipated bank, will be built at either end of the parking lot.
A Montana's restaurant? A Milestones?
"We'd welcome any of those," laughed Ron enthusiastically. "All those are great ideas!"
The Benjamin brothers of Stromiga have no doubt that the redevelopment will attract a restaurant franchise to the area, although they confirmed there isn't currently anything lined up ("Everything is still being finalized," said Steve. "We're talking another year from now before everything is ready").
And what about that exciting-yet-scary word, the big 'W'?
"Walmart attracts people to communities," said Steve. "A Walmart moving into town isn't a bad omen whatsoever. In fact, it's a good thing."
The Stromiga owners think that not only could the new storefronts help usher in a Walmart, and additional shoppers and tourists, but that the big-box powerhouse franchise would be far from the nail in the coffin for smaller local merchants.
"In retail, Walmart competes on price, and they have a half-decent selection, sure. Lots of stuff. But it's a different quality," said Steve. "Other stores around here can offer maybe better quality products and just different ones entirely."
The brothers said in their past experience with commercial redevelopment, they've noticed every time a Walmart moved into town, the surrounding stores profited from it.
"The other stores do better!" said Ron. "A Walmart brings way more people into town, which means more customers but not everyone is going to find what they're looking for at Walmart. Walmart can't offer everything."
One thing that is certain in Humboldt is that residents here take pride in their local mom and pop shops and are staunch supporters of shopping locally.
"That's another reason why stores won't flounder if a Walmart comes into town. It just offers more variety but it's not a death sentence," said Steve.
As for the Humboldt Commons, contrary to previously published timelines, Stromiga said that nothing is planned for this summer.
"Things won't start happening until the fall," said Steve, anticipating that merchants won't be ready to move into the storefronts until summer 2015.
"And things can always get delayed a bit, so it's hard to give a set timeline, but we're getting to work on stuff come the fall," said Ron. "We have to do final negotiations with tenants, work through the City because we need approvals, get cost estimates. There's a whole bunch of stuff that still needs to be done."
Stromiga is currently in the process of finding a commercial redeveloper who has worked on projects of this magnitude. When that's done and when costs are determined, then a clearer timeline can be outlined.
For now, people will have to wait with bated breath until they can make their first excursion to the Humboldt Commons shopping centre.
