After 19 years in the Annex, Presse Internationale will close its doors for good on Nov. 30 after being hit with a $4,000 rent increase.
It’s an all too familiar story on Bloor St., some business owners say, where high rents and high turnover rates in retail spaces have become the norm. The store owner beside Presse Internationale said he’s barely breaking even after paying rent and wages.
Another long-standing business said it moved locations after its landlord was unwilling to lower the rent to a reasonable amount.
On bustling Bloor St., Presse Internationale may look like any other convenience store, but inside its shelves are filled to the brim with thousands of publications — glossy magazines and broadsheet newspapers — in numerous languages.
Co-owner of Presse Internationale, Edith Yang, said she and her husband bought the boutique magazine store back in 2005. It had always been her dream to own a bookstore. At the time, they were newcomers to Canada from Fuzhou, China. Rent was only around $3,000, and business boomed.
“If you can believe it, some customers would buy 300 [magazines] at one time,” Yang said. “Everyday, we’d have one or two people like this.”
But over time, magazine sales dropped and rent got higher. Patrons say when the store shuts down, there won’t be anywhere else to find some of their favourite magazines.
The issue of rent came up after Yang’s original landlord sold the building to a new owner in January 2023. The lease was up in June that year and the new landlords asked Yang to sign a lease that reflected the “market rate” of the street, she said, which amounted to a $4,000 increase. Yang asked TorontoToday not to include the exact number they were asked to pay.
She said they may have been able to accommodate a $1,000 to $2,000 increase in rent, but $4,000 was simply unaffordable.
She was able to strike a deal with the new landlords to keep renting month-to-month at their original rate until they could find new tenants. Eventually, the new landlords decided to combine the Presse Internationale location with the neighbouring unit, a long-empty cafe that was once a Second Cup. A new restaurant is set to move in soon.
Yang said she understands that the new landlords are dealing with high mortgage payments after buying the property and can’t keep the rent as low as their former landlord. Still, she’s devastated to say goodbye to the store.
“I’ve cried many times,” she admitted.
She isn’t sure if the family will open a new magazine store. For now, they’re going to take the opportunity for a much-needed break. She said in the 19 years they’ve run the store, Yang, her husband and their son haven’t been able to go on a vacation, let alone eat meals together.
While she said she understands why her landlord raised the rent by $4,000, another business owner on the street said the price spike is “crazy” for that small of a unit.
Graham Dadswell — the owner of Alternative Arts on Bloor St., which recently moved to a different storefront — said he used to pay close to what Yang’s new landlords asked for.
Dadswell was in his original location on Bloor St. for 30 years, he said, and his landlord consistently raised the rent each time his lease was up. Last year, as his lease was expiring, he hired a real estate agent to look at other locations on Bloor St. and they found a unit for rent that was “substantially more attractive” by a magnitude of thousands of dollars per month. Dadswell also asked TorontoToday to not include exact numbers.
The Alternative Arts owner tried to negotiate with his landlord for a reduction in rent, noting that his business had been there for decades without a missed payment. The landlord offered a couple hundreds bucks off the bill each month, he said, which wasn’t enough to justify staying.
His new location is only a short walk away from the old spot, so Dadswell and his employees used dollies and moved all their equipment over on foot.
Dadswell’s new landlord had a lot of turnover in the unit before Alternative Arts moved in, so they were glad to finally have a long-standing business there.
“In this neighborhood, it can be very landlord-centric in terms of rent,” Dadswell said. “Some landlords are much more reasonable than others. Other landlords just want the maximum rent and if you can’t pay that rent you’re going to have to move on.”
He’s advising the owners of Presse Internationale to do what he did and contact a real estate agent to look for a cheaper place.
“When you get so much turnover, people lose touch with the sense of the neighbourhood,” Dadswell said. He’s advocating for an empty store tax, so landlords are more incentivized to lower rents and keep stable businesses in their units.
Writer and podcaster Will Sloan, a long-time patron of Presse Internationale, is also concerned about the neighbourhood’s fabric now that another family business is closing.
“I understand we're in a market society, but if generating money is allowed to be valued disproportionately above all else, we lose the spirit of these neighborhoods and we lose the things that made them worth living in,” he said.
Kume Pather, a freelance editorial illustrator who works nearby, is especially sad to see Presse Internationale shutter because he struggles to find his work in print elsewhere on Toronto newsstands.
“That’s the only store where I can actually find some of my international work in print, unless I get it mailed to me, which rarely happens,” he said.
Right beside Presse Internationale is a convenience store called Mr. Mart. Owner Ali Akhtar said he pays almost $12,000 in rent each month. Foot traffic is low, according to the business owner, and he doesn’t know how long he’ll be able to stay on the street.
“Even though there aren’t many convenience stores on the street, it’s still really hard for us,” Akhtar said. “We don’t make enough.”
Most of the revenue from the business goes towards paying rent and wages for his employees, with not much left over to put back into the business.
According to a 2022 report by small-business advocacy group Better Way Alliance, commercial rent in Toronto increased by 38 per cent between 2020 and 2021. Over half of the small businesses surveyed said they’re going to be forced to move at the end of their current lease because of high rent.
Local NDP MPP Jessica Bell said it’s “time to look at provincial commercial rent control so businesses like Presse Internationale aren't priced out of their neighbourhood.”