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Canac will begin construction early next month on its store in Rivière-du-Loup, Que. The site for the chain’s long-awaited 33rd store was purchased back in 2017. It and the upcoming 34th store in Sorel-Tracy, Que., each represent an investment of about $20 million.

Chesapeake, Va.-based Dollar Tree will close a thousand of its stores south of the border in the next few years, the company announced last week. It will close 600 stores under the Family Dollar banner, which it acquired in 2015, in the first half of this year, plus 370 of that brand’s stores over the next few years. For the quarter ending Feb. 3, Dollar Tree lost US$1.71 billion, or US$7.85 a share. Retail analysts have blamed the botched acquisition of Family Dollar for the losses. There are about 227 Dollar Tree stores in Canada, not one of which the company says is being closed at this time. Dollar Tree operates more than 15,000 stores in North America.

Sales of existing Canadian homes fell 3.1 percent in February from the previous month, according to the Canadian Real Estate Association. That followed a cumulative 12.7 percent increase in sales activity in December and January. The actual (not seasonally adjusted) number of transactions came in 19.7 percent above those for February 2023, which were among the lowest for that month in the past two decades.

Investment in building construction declined 0.9 percent to $19.7 billion in January, StatCan reports. In the residential sector, spending fell by $194 million or 1.4 percent to $13.6 billion. The decline was led by a $228 million (4.1 percent) drop in Ontario, to $5.4 billion. It was partially offset by increases in five provinces, in particular a $53 million spike in Quebec, where spending reached $2.5 billion.

The Home Depot is opening four new distribution centres, including one in Toronto, to serve its contractor customer better. The new facilities are an instrumental part of the retailer’s strategy to better serve pro customers, including those working on larger, more complex projects than typically served by Home Depot stores. The other DCs will be in Los Angeles; Detroit; and San Antonio, Tex.

The new distribution centres will stock large, bulky merchandise like lumber, insulation, and roofing shingles. With a network of distribution centres stocking a variety of product types, pros can order job lot quantities of the products they need to complete their entire projects, delivered directly to their job sites. The new distribution centres are expected to open in the first half of the year.

The annualized pace of housing starts rose by 14 percent in February to 253,468 units, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. reports, from 223,176 units in January. The actual number of urban housing starts was up 11 percent to 17,495 units, from 15,822 a year earlier. Single-detached starts decreased 14 percent in February.

Loblaw Cos. is testing self-checkout receipt scanners at four of its grocery stores in southern Ontario, the company said yesterday. Metal barricades refuse to open if a customer does not scan their receipt after going through self-checkout. If the customer tries to force the barricade, an alarm goes off.

The stores with the “small test” (in the words of a Loblaw Cos. spokesperson) are in Oakville, Georgetown, Windsor, and Woodstock. An attempt to reduce “organized retail crime” was the reason for the experiment, the spokesperson said.

Empire Co. reported Q3 net earnings of $134.2 million, up 8.5 percent from $125.7 million a year earlier. The parent of Sobeys, Safeway, and FreshCo saw stable sales for the quarter, totalling about $7.49 billion compared to about $7.48 billion in the prior Q3. The results fell at the low end of Bay Street estimates.

Shifts in consumer behaviour, including spending, will keep businesses on their toes this year, according to a report from realty services firm CBRE. “Expect retailers to lean into discounts or other targeted promotions to capture the selective spending and move product,” the 2024 Canada Real Estate Market Outlook states. It also forecasts that retailers going out of business will create more vacancies in markets where they have previously been scarce.