McNally makes me McAngry. McReally?

I blogged a couple days ago about the demise of McNally Robinson in Calgary. I reminisced a little, but mostly I expressed my concern for what this might mean for downtown Calgary. (Something I might write more about in the future.) 

Losing McNally makes me sad. I wanted to write first and get that emotion out of the way first before I expressed the emotion that soon followed: anger.

It makes me damn angry that McNally is leaving Calgary. Why? Because they just recently opened a store in Manhattan and are currently in the process of opening another in Toronto. And now they give us the reason for their exodus being Calgary is too expensive. NYC and Toronto strike me as two locations that I can't imagine being any less expensive than Calgary. Why say you are leaving Calgary because it is expensive when you are moving into two even more expensive cities?

Here's a blog post from John Manzo that I think sums up my opinion on the subject pretty well. (h/t qtlibrarian). Specifically he hits on my biggest nerve in their argument for leaving Calgary by pointing out real estate prices shouldn't affect you too much when YOU OWN THE BUILDING. 

I'm sure there is more story here...