More than half of the space available for rent at Moncton’s Granite Centre is spoken for, leading one of the projects developers to dub the growing retail hub ‘The Dartmouth Crossing of New Brunswick.’
“The site is very active and we’ve already leased up about 64 percent,” said Bill Hennessey, the managing director with Colliers International New Brunswick – the real estate broker signing tenants up for the Granite Centre.
Hennessey said that he and his partner developers were inspired by the success of Dartmouth Crossing and “see that as what we’re kind of tracking towards with the Granite Centre.”
At 64 percent occupancy, tenants now are leasing – or are about to lease – about 186,500 square feet of the nearly 300,000 square feet of retail space on Granite Drive
Hennessey told Huddle that 16 tenants are coming to the retail plaza, where Costco is its largest anchor business.
While three restaurants have already been contracted, Hennessey said more are still in negotiation stages. When completed, Hennessey said the full complement of businesses at the Granite Centre could potentially bring at least 200 new jobs to the city.
Businesses that have recently opened their doors on Granite Drive, or announced their intention to, include Simply For Life, which recently relocated from Dieppe, as well as Taco Boyz, Wing’n It, and Boustan, chains that have come to New Brunswick from Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland, and Quebec, respectively. All are scheduled to open soon.
With about half of the tenants showing interest in the Granite Centre in the food sector, Hennessey said the food-heavy offerings coming up are “the natural evolution based on the dynamics of the area.”
He said that there is a growing demand for more food options in the north end with the growth in the Caledonia Industrial Park.
“There is not a lot of food in that area of town, so if you look along the Elmwood Drive corridor, it’s challenging to find a sit-down restaurant,” said Hennessey. “It was kind of a deficit of food in that area, with demand being what it is.”
On top of that, he said food businesses were, and are, some of the most aggressive bouncing back from the pandemic.
“The food inquiries picked up dramatically relative to other retailers,” he said.
The Granite Centre, located at the end of Elmwood Drive, near the Trans-Canada Highway, is also just down the road from the Caledonia Industrial Park.
The industrial park includes the 21,000-square-foot Walmart Distribution Centre that’s under construction and slated to bring more than 200 jobs to Moncton, and Ideal Roofing’s new, 80,000-square-foot headquarters.
“There is a lot of energy in that area and from a development standpoint you’ve got new jobs going into Caledonia, and from a residential standpoint, Moncton’s developed as far west as it can,” said Hennessey.
“If you look at the logical growth and development for both commercial and residential, it’s up Elmwood Drive, where you get 26,000 cars a day, where you can get on and off the highway easily, or access downtown or Dieppe in 10 minutes. If you look at the evolution of the city, the Elmwood Drive area is the next logical place for development to happen.”
Timeline
Hennessey said that if progress continues at its current pace, he hopes to see the Granite Centre fully built and at capacity by the end of 2024. He said labour shortages are the only real obstacle to progress on the retail plaza.
Construction is underway for a new, 6,000-square-foot building at the southeast corner of the site near Elmwood Drive, and negotiations are in the works for a 4,500-square-foot, sit-down restaurant at the southeast end of the property.
The contractors behind the boots-on-the-ground work to build homes for the many businesses coming to the Granite Centre are Halifax-based RCS Construction.
RCS is one of three partners working together on the development – a trio that includes Lumel Centre Developments, the owner of the five Home Hardware locations in Greater Moncton, and the Gray Group of Prince Edward Island.
The developers are also in negotiations with two retail tenants looking for a 40,000-square-foot berth each at the Granite Centre.
Hennessey couldn’t release any names but noted each new business if they sign leases, would require new construction located on the north side of Granite Drive. With those built, the plaza would include 12 separate buildings.
Looking forward, Hennessey said further developments on still-vacant land in the west portion of the property near Costco aren’t off the table. However, those are considerations are for after 2024, once the first phase for the Granite Centre is complete.
Sam Macdonald is a Reporter with Huddle Today, a content-sharing partner of Acadia Broadcasting