When it came to finding a new tenant for the former Target building in south Barrie, size really mattered.
The empty building is 127,000 square feet.
"There is nobody that can take a space that large," said Terry Coughlin, Managing Partner of the North American Development Group. "I talked to a lot of the major types of tenants from Canadian Tire to Costco, Loblaws - the ones that would be big enough - but everybody was positioned and didn't want to move."
Park Place management decided to divide the building up into smaller units and is now in negotiations with six new tenants.
One confirmed tenant is "X-Play," a family entertainment business with trampolines and laser tag that will occupy 26,000 square feet.
"It will be quite a nice operation," said Coughlin. "The X-Play will be taking about 20 percent of the whole space."
There is one other children's entertainment business set to claim about 12,000 feet but Coughlin can't disclose the name yet.
"Of the four spaces in the front of the building, one deal is firm but I don't want to announce it and the other ones we're in negotiation with three or four different people. Probably more people than we have space for," said Coughlin.
Management hopes the businesses will open by next summer.
"It's a huge space and we think that a lot of the theme that's running through it will be entertainment kind of stuff. It will bring people to the centre. Get people out of their chairs and have fun."
