Target closures leave big gap in local retail
Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday January 16, 2015
Target’s decision to pull out of Canada will leave seven large spaces to fill in the local retail landscape and as many as 1,000 employees scrambling to find work.
Target has five stores in Hamilton and two in Burlington. The retailer wouldn’t say how many will lose their jobs between the seven locations but noted there are between 100 and 150 employees at each store.
Hamilton Target employee Madison Lip said news of the pending closure took her surprise Thursday morning.
“It was sad. I wasn’t expecting it,” said Lip, an 18-year-old cashier at the Upper James store.
Lip, a high school student, said she’s one of the lucky ones because she lives with her parents and has secured other part-time work.
But some of her colleagues have families to support, she said.
“They have bills to pay. They have kids.”
TrioVest Realty, which leases space to retailers at the Centre on Barton where Target has a 100,000 square-foot store, said finding another tenant won’t be easy.
“It’s going to be difficult. Finding a tenant for a large space like that is never easy, especially when you’ve already got the typical large users of space on site already,” said Tom Falls, senior vice-president of retail for TrioVest.
Falls said the good news is the east-Hamilton power centre still has plenty to offer consumers, including Wal-Mart, Canadian Tire, Marshalls, Beer Store, LCBO, fashion retailers and banks.
“The consumer speaks with their wallet and I think the consumer spoke in Canada and unfortunately it wasn’t good news for Target,” he added. (Source: Hamilton Spectator)
Canada, economy, Target, labour, business, USA, commerce