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The quick read: CT REIT will spend $22 million turning the vacant former Canadian Tire store on Leckie Road into about 90,000 square feet of modern retail space, with completion expected in the third quarter of 2028. More than half of the space is already committed to lease, with a fitness tenant signed first at market rents above what Canadian Tire was paying. Canadian Tire moved to a larger new store on Highway 97 in October 2025, leaving the Leckie Road building empty.

The big empty box on Leckie Road is getting a second life.

CT Real Estate Investment Trust announced this week it will spend $22 million redeveloping the vacant former Canadian Tire store in Kelowna.

The project will deliver about 89,500 square feet of modern retail space by the third quarter of 2028.

Canadian Tire left the building when it moved to a larger new store on Highway 97 in October 2025.

The old store has sat vacant since, in a city where retail space is scarce.

Greater Kelowna had about 6.2 million square feet of retail space at mid-year 2025, with a vacancy rate of just 2.94 percent, according to Colliers figures cited in a fall market report.

More than half already leased

The redevelopment is not a speculative bet on a hope and a prayer.

On the trust's third-quarter earnings call, senior vice-president of real estate Jodi Shpigel said more than half of the building was already committed to lease.

The first lease signed is with a fitness user.

President and CEO Kevin Salsberg said the committed rents are at market rates, and higher than the rents Canadian Tire had been paying.

The trust also collected lease-surrender revenue in the third quarter tied to the Kelowna property, because Canadian Tire still had lease term left when it moved to its new CT REIT-owned store nearby.

Salsberg said he would not expect more lease-surrender revenue through the rest of 2026 or into 2027.

Private money, no taxpayer ask

This is the kind of project Kelowna should want more of.

A private landlord is putting $22 million of its own capital into a vacant building, with tenants already lined up, and no grant application, no subsidy, and no council debate about who pays.

The announcement came alongside a $14-million purchase of a Canadian Tire store in Victoria.

Together, the two B.C. investments are expected to earn a going-in yield of 8.45 percent and add about 122,300 square feet of leasable area.

CT REIT reported third-quarter property revenue of $161.3 million, up 6.7 percent from a year earlier, with portfolio occupancy at 99.5 percent.

Canadian Tire still accounts for 92 percent of the trust's leasable area, so the Leckie Road project also matters as diversification: a former Canadian Tire box, reborn as multi-tenant retail, with a fitness operator as its anchor.

For shoppers, the payoff is simple.

An empty big-box store on a busy road becomes shops and services again, in a market where there is very little empty retail to go around.

If the schedule holds, the doors open in the summer of 2028.

Sources: CT REIT third-quarter 2026 results (CNW Group, November 9, 2026); CT REIT Q3 earnings call summary (American Banking News, November 11, 2026); REMAX Canada Fall 2026 Kelowna commercial real estate report.