The Market By Longo's Toronto

Incorporating all of the fresh departments and offerings of its traditional stores within the reduced footprint of a 7,800-square-foot urban model,The Market by Longo's builds on the success of its evolving urban-concept store strategy that reflects a new generation of Longo's stores designed to meet an increasing demand for a superior shopping experience, while providing downtown customers access to a wide variety of quality foods.

Working closely with Longo's to develop a solutions-based store format that placed less emphasis on center store in favor of fresh foods, store designer Watt International Inc.'s finished product skillfully incorporates a streamlined offering of grocery, dairy, bakery and frozen foods.

To ensure a seamless, fluid floor plan to shop, the design team prioritized working with a footprint that was familiar to shoppers and similar to a full-shop grocery store. A rectangular shape was chosen to accomplish this goal, offering shoppers the perception of a more familiar store layout, and therefore making it easier for them to find everything they need.

The design placed produce in a familiar, favorite front-of-store location to highlight Longo's fresh, healthy offerings while further reinforcing that the store is a condensed grocery store rather than an upgraded convenience store. Watt's design team also incorporated custom lighting that elevates the space and takes advantage of the high ceilings.

The round silver lighting employed throughout, meanwhile, trains a warm spotlight on merchandise while adding an upscale feel to the urban store, which also conveys a more boutique feel to create a warm and inviting shopping experience.

Among the challenges confronted by the design team was a slight elevation of the front door, which prohibited customers from easily seeing it from street level. To solve this issue, a large amount of appetite-appealing exterior photography and clear signage communicating savings and specials was installed to entice customers and capture their attention.

Interestingly, due to recent street beautification regulations enforced by the city of Toronto, Longo's and Watt were also challenged not only to redesign the inside of the new store, but also to refresh the exterior, while adhering to various city policies. And here again, the end result is an exterior that's as inviting and visually stimulating as the interior of the gourmet compact grocery supermarket.

Another challenge that needed to be addressed and surmounted was the harshness of the concrete that surrounds the store. Working with Longo's, Watt created exterior applications that covered most of the concrete around the store. Further, by using Longo's brand colors strategically on the exterior of the building, the store designers were able to soften the harsh exterior and bring the brand to life at street level.

Yet one more challenge was maintaining the brand essence of Longo's between its suburban and urban stores. By using similar building materials and finishes while simultaneously communicating its core underlying messaging that conveys comfortably familiar layouts like those in its suburban stores, The Market by Longo's has been able to maintain its own unique brand essence while expanding into a new and exciting market segment.

Since its grand opening in March 2010, Longo's Hudson Bay Centre store's first-year performance was strong, reaching 90 percent of its projected estimates. Even more promising are sales for the first half of 2011, which are currently trending at more than 30 percent over last year's, reflective of strong customer and neighborhood acceptance and approval, as well as an excellent combination of location, design and offerings.