WINDSOR, ONT. -- A boutique grocery store is coming to downtown Windsor.
It is expected to open in early 2021 inside the Security Building at Pelissier Street and University Avenue.
“If you really want some nice fruits vegetables, meats, there’s just nowhere to go unless you get in your car and drive out of downtown,” says entrepreneur Vern Myslichuk, who bought the building earlier this year.
“I’m hoping three months. We’re going to push really hard. Everything seems like it’s in go mode,” he says.
The grocery store will also feature an upper level.
“I’m hoping to have a little coffee area up there. A place where you can buy some meats and sandwiches,” Myslichuk says. “Products from the grocery store itself and just go there and sit down and relax spend 20 minutes and have a sandwich.”
The new store will make the core one step closer to being a more walkable community, according to the chair of the Downtown Windsor Business Improvement Association.
“I would love to have a place where people that live in the downtown core can walk to whatever they need,” says Brian Yeomans, who hasn’t seen a grocery store in the city’s core since he moved there 28 years ago.
There is a growing trend of people moving to the downtown core.
Since the approval of the Downtown Community Improvement Plan in 2017, city council has approved grants for 340 new residential units under the CIP.
Of those approvals, 188 new residential units have been completed.
“With all the new added units that are coming on downtown plus the huge condo buildings that are already here, it’s finally viable for a business like this to succeed,” says city councillor Rino Bortolin.
Myslichuk plans to add 42 residential units on the upper levels of the security building.
“I’m hoping within the next year and a half that will be finished,” he says.
The Bettermade Cabinets owner believes businesses are starting to believe in the downtown core, once again.
“You’re going to see little shops pop up,” Myslichuk says. “Little tie shops, suit shops, coffee shop and I’ll probably be personally involved in some of that.”
