Former grocery store building on Broadway Avenue in Saskatoon ...

Pratyush Dayal · CBC News

· Posted: Dec 27, 2023 11:56 AM EST | Last Updated: December 27

Someone has purchased the building that used to hold the only grocery store in Saskatoon's Broadway area before it closed last year.

The Extra Foods on Broadway Avenue shut down in April 2022. Its parent company Loblaw Companies said at the time that the location had not been turning a profit.

Ben Kelley, associate vice president at CBRE Saskatchewan, the brokerage firm that represented Loblaw in the sale, confirmed that a deal was reached.

"The deal is complete. Whether or not the title is transferred, I don't know, but the deal is done," he said.

Kelley did not share the price or the purchaser of the property, but confirmed it was a local buyer. He said the future of the site is yet to be determined.

"Long term it'll be a redevelopment site. Short term, we don't know," he said.

Cynthia Block, the city councillor for Ward 6, where the building is located, said two local developers are looking to work together on the site.

"I'm hoping that it'll have some mixed-use and potential, at least, to have a grocery store," she said.

Block said she is "optimistic and encouraged" that there will be an opportunity to create something that "isn't just for the benefit of the developers, but also to our community."

Extra Foods served customers from the Broadway district and other nearby neighbourhoods, as there aren't any other grocery stores in a large surrounding radius.

Block said city council has tried to pull some levers to make a grocery store economically sustainable in the downtown and core neighbourhoods.

"But we clearly can't operate a grocery store. It would still be up to a grocery store owner to choose to put in that type of business on Broadway. I'm still optimistic."

Some people have described the city's downtown and surrounding area as a food desert, with no major grocery store in sight. Pitchfork Kitchen and Market at the Midtown mall was going to change that. But last week it was announced the company's lease was terminated by Midtown. Host Candice Lipski explores what this means for people who live in the city's core with Rachel Engler-Stringer, an associate professor in Community Health and epidemiology at the University of Saskatchewan.

She said that as more people choose to walk or take public transit, it is essential for them to have access to a nearby grocery store.

"In the best interest of an entire community trying to access food where they live. We still have that common resolve to bring grocery stores, to bring food where people are."

Block said population density affects the sustainability of such stores.

"It's always the chicken and egg thing. We can't have a grocery store because we don't have enough density and we can't get enough density because we don't have a grocery store."

Block said Saskatoon's density is improving, with a population growth of 14,000 in the past year.

"A grocery store or a local store are the places that people gather, the places where people meet their neighbours. It's kind of part of the cultural fabric of how we live," she said.