Rocco's No Frills #3643 - Downtown Toronto
One of the many No Frills locations in Toronto, but one of few downtown.
What's interesting about this No Frills is that the store isn't a former Loblaws! Before 2011, the store wasn't a store at all! Instead the space used for this store was part of the printing department for the Toronto Sun. Where you currently see the No Frills façade was, in 2009 according to Google Maps, a series of loading bays where carriers would (back in the day) load their vehicles full of Toronto Sun newspapers, and then distribute them to stores, newspaper boxes, and subscribers across the city and Ontario.
With the general decline in print media over the past 20-years, many newspapers have begun shuttering their printing presses and that includes the Toronto Sun. By 2009, it appears that most of the printing work was completed off-site, as Google Maps street view shows most of the loading bays used simply for parking back then.
Between April 2009 and October 2011, it appears that the Sun moved most of their operations out of this building, as Google street view shows this No Frills as just completed, with the floors above the store being added onto to include the black part of the building on top of the existing brown brick façade.
Unfortunately, this No Frills won't be around for much longer. The site on which this store sits is planned for redevelopment and based on the site plan submitted to the city, it appears that the new building will not include a grocery store.
For the east-side of downtown the closure of this No Frills will be a massive loss. In recent years, downtown Toronto has seen massive amounts of redevelopment, with new condos replacing grocery stores and other buildings across the core. In some circumstances, redeveloped grocery stores are replaced with a new location at the ground level of the developed site. However, that has become less and less common over the years, with more and more redevelopments lacking any sort of ground level retail space.
Hopefully a new No Frills can open in the area once this one closes. Especially since it's the only discount retailer in the area. The area has already lost one grocery store, with a Sobeys Urban Fresh located at the south-west side of Front and Princess, closing sometime in 2014.
Rocco's No Frills #3643 - Downtown Toronto
One of the many No Frills locations in Toronto, but one of few downtown.
What's interesting about this No Frills is that the store isn't a former Loblaws! Before 2011, the store wasn't a store at all! Instead the space used for this store was part of the printing department for the Toronto Sun. Where you currently see the No Frills façade was, in 2009 according to Google Maps, a series of loading bays where carriers would (back in the day) load their vehicles full of Toronto Sun newspapers, and then distribute them to stores, newspaper boxes, and subscribers across the city and Ontario.
With the general decline in print media over the past 20-years, many newspapers have begun shuttering their printing presses and that includes the Toronto Sun. By 2009, it appears that most of the printing work was completed off-site, as Google Maps street view shows most of the loading bays used simply for parking back then.
Between April 2009 and October 2011, it appears that the Sun moved most of their operations out of this building, as Google street view shows this No Frills as just completed, with the floors above the store being added onto to include the black part of the building on top of the existing brown brick façade.
Unfortunately, this No Frills won't be around for much longer. The site on which this store sits is planned for redevelopment and based on the site plan submitted to the city, it appears that the new building will not include a grocery store.
For the east-side of downtown the closure of this No Frills will be a massive loss. In recent years, downtown Toronto has seen massive amounts of redevelopment, with new condos replacing grocery stores and other buildings across the core. In some circumstances, redeveloped grocery stores are replaced with a new location at the ground level of the developed site. However, that has become less and less common over the years, with more and more redevelopments lacking any sort of ground level retail space.
Hopefully a new No Frills can open in the area once this one closes. Especially since it's the only discount retailer in the area. The area has already lost one grocery store, with a Sobeys Urban Fresh located at the south-west side of Front and Princess, closing sometime in 2014.