By Andrew de Souza

Cornerstone continues to grow with more stores confirmed

May 6, 2011 | 6:32 AM

The Cornerstone shopping district continues to grow with more businesses choosing to locate in the city.

The buildings currently under construction have all been spoken for and are businesses that have reached an occupancy agreement with the development partnership between Springwood Land Corporation and the Canadian Real Estate Investment Trust.

Currently, the businesses will be located in the new buildings are the Prince Albert Co-op, Royal Bank, Wok Box, Fat Burger, Original Joe’s Bar and Grill and the craft store Michaels.

According to Springwood Development Corp. president, Andrew Megson, the newest stores are choosing to locate in Prince Albert and Cornerstone because the area is increasingly proving to be successful.

“It has been a resounding success and it has really kind of expanded the retail trade area of the city as people are choosing to come to Prince Albert, and the amount of traffic that’s going to Saskatoon are deciding to steer towards Prince Albert to do their shopping,” he said.

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“It’s a real feather in the hat for the whole city. It’s not just the tenants that benefit. It’s the hotels, the restaurants, the recreation facilities, the golf courses, the recreation vehicle dealers. It’s a real trickle effect where.”

In addition to the buildings currently under construction, the development partnership owns an additional 16 acres that will be able to accommodate another 150,000 square feet of store space.

It should take at least three years before the development is fully complete, Megson said. That’s because the group won’t commit to the construction of new buildings without a firm commitment from a tenant.

“Our model is that we won’t build (a) thing on (speculation) — we would want tenants first” he said.

“So as tenants present themselves, and as businesses come to the market place and say we want to do a store in Prince Albert, we would do a lease deal with them and then build the building.”

Once the Cornerstone development is complete, Megson said it will have a total store space of 1 million sq. ft.

“We have about 12 of these shops. This would be our biggest, and we can probably count it as our most successful,” he said.

“It is a retail draw that you could argue is, if it’s not the biggest in Saskatchewan, it would be one of the biggest consolidated shopping areas in all of Saskatchewan.”

adesouza@panow.com