In July of 2016 Shoppers Mall Brandon operator Morguard Real Estate Investment Trust made the announcement of a major remerchandising strategy to their Brandon property. Most notably that project was to re-develop spaces previously occupied by Target and Safeway, allow for development of restaurant pad sites toward the East side of the property’s parking lot and an updated main entrance.
Though the end restaurant configuration is slightly different from that announcement, Monday’s opening of Original Joe’s marks the final item on an initial list of updates that included additions of:
- Sobeys Extra in a portion of redeveloped Target space
- GoodLife Fitness in a portion of space once occupied by Safeway
- Swiss Chalet/Harvey’s
- East Side Mario’s
- Original Joe’s (initial plans were for Fionn MacCools)
- Thai Express
In the weeks and months that followed the initial of redevelopment plans, announcements would lead into the additions of Shoppers Drug Mart, Dollarama, Tommy Gun’s Barbershop, Delta 9, the re-location of Ardene into a new larger spot in the renovated former Target space and a handful of other store openings.
According to a Shoppers Mall spokesperson, only a few exterior finishes remain in the $30 million redevelopment project with plans soon to be unveiled for a Grand Re-opening later in June.
As part of the project a new corridor was made to connect Sobeys to the rest of the Mall. That corridor is now temporarily closed with the mall teasing of something new and exciting coming next month as part of the Grand Re-opening. Via Sobeys’ social media it sounds like that something new may borrow a page from Downtown's playbook this spring.
Though a parking study was carried out and approved by the City as part of the development process, a common point of interest in online chatter over the past nearly-three years would be the state of parking at the mall site. Original Joes’ opening marks the first full test in that regard, with most recent mall literature online stating there to be 2000 available parking stalls.
Further details are expected to be known on Shoppers Mall Brandon’s Grand Re-opening prior to the June 22 date that they are said to have marked on the calendar