finance
Retail Trends Shift Toward Value-Driven and Smaller Formats: What Downtown Businesses Need to Know Now
Discount grocers and local retailers are reshaping Canadian downtowns amid rising vacancies and remote-work effects.
How we reported this
Discount chains Food Basics and No Frills are opening smaller urban stores in Ottawa, Toronto and Burlington through late 2025 and into 2026 as downtown grocery growth accelerates across Canada.
These moves align with the dominant 2026 retail trends of value-driven retail, smaller store footprints, experiential tenants and grocery-anchored growth, while legacy big-box formats continue to shrink. The changes matter now because remote work is cutting foot traffic in multiple Canadian cores, forcing retailers to adjust quickly to survive.
Grocery openings target condo and transit sites
Food Basics opened its first urban concept store in Ottawa’s Centretown in August 2025. A new urban No Frills opened in Burlington’s Aldershot corridor in late November 2025. Whole Foods is anchoring Toronto’s King Toronto development with a 30,000-square-foot store, and Montreal-based KaleMart24 plans a downtown Toronto flagship in June 2026. These projects show how chains are fitting into smaller urban footprints near transit and residential towers.
Vacancy and local shifts reshape city cores
Downtown Vancouver’s storefront vacancy rate rose to 14.9 percent in 2024, according to https://retail-insider.com/retail-insider/2026/03/downtown-grocery-growth-accelerates-in-canada/. Apparel sales there grew 7.3 percent year-over-year, and Adidas opened a new Brand Centre at Robson and Burrard. In downtown Calgary, smaller local stores are replacing spaces left by big international chains at the CORE Shopping Centre, turning the area into a local shopping destination, per https://newsroom.calgary.ca/downtown-calgary-local-shopping/.
Over half of Montreal’s population works from home at least three to four days a week, reducing downtown foot traffic, as noted in https://www.cnu.org/publicsquare/2019/09/10/new-day-downtown-retail. Businesses should monitor these patterns and consider value pricing, compact layouts and grocery-adjacent locations to match current demand.
This article is general information only and is not personal financial or investment advice. Consider your own circumstances and seek licensed professional advice before making financial decisions.