By: Devan Mighton, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Lakeshore News Reporter
Coming to the corner of LaSalle’s Heritage Drive and Sandwich West Parkway, The Shoppes at Heritage will offer a shopping experience for everyone, including Food Basics, Tim Hortons, Shoppers Drug Mart, Pet Valu, Taco Bell, Dollarama, LaSalle’s first McDonald’s, and even a hotel.
The $200-million commercial development is aided by the team-up of D’Amore Group and Petretta Construction and will feature in excess of 250,000 sq. ft. of retail space.
Construction is broken up into two phases. The first being for retail space, and the second, which will come later, for a hotel.
“Ideally, you’d love to see a couple of the tenants open up later this year, but, really, the majority of the tenants that are going in now, those buildings you see being erected right now, that’ll be a spring ’26 open for most of them,” explains D’Amore Group president Scott D’Amore.
He says that projects of this size and scope bring a lot to the community. “Obviously, the convenience of having all of these national players in our community—in the Town of LaSalle—specifically in this part of LaSalle, which has been so underserviced when it comes to commercial developments and service—I think it expands the town and opens things up,” he opines.
The Shoppes at Heritage will add to the “walkability” of the community, something D’Amore says is important to the town’s growth.
“When you look at the Town of LaSalle, so much of the future development is on this side of the town—over towards the Heritage Area,” states D’Amore. “It makes for a truly walkable community, where all these people in the existing homes here and the homes to come up for the next 10 years, are going to have so much stuff accessible to them.”
D’Amore adds that this project will help raise the tax base through its commercial property use, which will help pay for infrastructure and services around LaSalle, while also creating 400-500 sustainable jobs at the site.
Although fear of US tariffs is omnipresent these days, and their potential impact on the construction industry, D’Amore says that his company has worked to alleviate the possible stress of the situation on this development.
“In the environment that we currently live in, and the uncertainty of it, [tariffs are] always something that has to be considered,” he states. “We are working very hard to stay ahead of the game on that, and a lot of the stuff we did was focusing as much as we could on buying Canadian.”
“Going out there and sourcing as much as we can from within Canada—that certainly takes all the tariffs and such out of play—and working with our suppliers to get ahead of the game, when we know the materials we’ll need going out there. If we need to, purchase it early so we know that we’re purchasing it at a price that works for us and are doing it before any further changes come.
“There’s always a bit of uncertainty, but I think we’ve worked with our people very well to minimize the issues in that area.”
D’Amore says that planning for the hotel is in progress and that multiple players in the market have expressed interest. He says that the hotel will probably be fully realized in either 2027 or 2028.
He adds that he is optimistic that The Shoppes at Heritage will serve as a great epicentre and power centre for the community.
“Overall, the reaction from the community has been very positive,” states D’Amore. “As somebody who’s actively worked on this development for 20 years, for myself alone—not even including what my father had done before—I’ve been hearing from people out on this side of LaSalle, ‘When are we gonna get a grocery store?’ This site finally brings to reality a grocery store that anchors this site and then provides all of the other necessities, services, and wants of a community. You’ve got everything from groceries to a major drug store with Shoppers Drug Mart, things like pets and medical services, and then everything from your quick services restaurants with Taco Bell, McDonald’s, and Tim Hortons, right down to the sit-down restaurant component—a return to a place where the community can go, get together, watch a game, get a meal together, and sit down and enjoy.”
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