Summative Lab Assignment
Final Lab Assignment: Selecting the Next Location for a COBS Bread Store
This summative lab assignment gives you an opportunity to bring together many of the analytical techniques you practiced in the first eight workshops in order to propose a viable location for the placement of a tenth COBS Bread store in the Greater Toronto Area. You will have to consider at least three (3) factors included in the datasets you have already been using (“Toronto_Data.shp”) which would make a location a success given the type of product offered by the company and the market they seek to serve.
This assignment is worth 30% of your final grade. Half of the marks will be given for the steps you take in the analysis and mapping of data. The other half of the grade will be for the writing up of the procedures and the results, and the explanation you provide (with reference to the maps and other data created) in support of your recommendation for the location of the tenth COBS Bread store in the Toronto region. Please note that all steps required to complete this assignment have already been described in detail through the previous labs. It is up to you to decide how to combine the techniques provided in those labs.
First, you must decide what census variables you will include in your analysis. You must include at least three variables and explain why you have included these ones as those which will help pinpoint viable market areas for expansion. In Workshop 8 we used two factors: household after tax income > $70 000 and the number of children under 20. In a previous workshop, we included pre-tax income and school-aged children. You may choose these and/or any other relevant variables, but must explain why you have chosen the variables you used.
Having chosen the variables you intend to use, you must then determine where in the Toronto CMA there are sufficient clusters of population (i.e., enough census tracts) to make a store viable at that location. That might be your first map. You must choose at least three potential locations to investigate, add those locations to your map (by either creating a new shapefile as done in Workshop 9, or by adding possible locations to the shapefile you already created in that workshop. As before, you can disregard the current land use designation of any potential site. You are just looking for the best possible market area for expansion. These three or more potential locations should be labelled and shown on a single map which would also include the locations of all 9 existing COBS Bread stores.
Next you must analyse and map relevant data for all three or more of the potential store location market areas you have identified. You may use Select by Location and/or Clip to select the relevant trade areas. The size of the buffer may differ in each case depending on whether or not the proposed site is inner city or suburban (as was done in one of the labs) but the method chosen to select the relevant CTs must be consistent. You may not select CTs by centroid for one market area and by intersect for another. Write up the market area analysis for each potential location and include a map of each. These market area maps may all be placed on the same map layout page or presented as three (or more) separate map layouts.
You must consider how each potential location may “cannibalize” other stores in the chain. Therefore you must determine the distance from each potential location to the nearest existing COBS store and determine whether or not the potential new store would share part of its market with an existing location (as the Annex store market area clearly overlaps and the Kensington store market area). If market areas overlap, then this must be taken into consideration in determining whether or not a potential location is the best one.
Finally, you must determine which potential store has the most promising market area and therefore is the location you would recommend to the corporate headquarters as the best location for the placement of the tenth COBS Bread store in the Greater Toronto Area. You must support your decision with specific reference to the maps and other data you have created in this activity.
This assignment is not an essay. It is a report of findings and recommendations after consideration of the market areas of at least three potential new store locations. Therefore, final product of this assignment must include written statements of key decisions made about the variables chosen as significant, the market area boundaries determined for each location, the analysis of each potential market area, and a defence of the recommendation being made. All of the written component must be in proper English paragraphs. The use of subtitles is encouraged.
The report must also include correctly assembled map layouts of the relevant data for the Toronto region as a whole and for each of the potential market areas. These maps must be embedded within the report (exported as jpegs from the GIS and inserted into the report).
There is no minimum size (i.e., number of words/pages) for this report, but should not exceed 1500 words of text. Please use a 12 point font and 2.5 cm (1 inch) margins for the written portions of your report.