A discount retail store and health club are soon to set up shop in the former Target site at the Centre on Barton.

Giant Tiger and Goodlife Fit4Less will occupy a little less than half of the vacated 115,000-square-foot store in the east end centre.

"It's basically about 40 per cent of the space," Aubrey Greenberg, senior director of asset manager for Triovest, the firm that manages the Centre on Barton, said Thursday.

Greenberg said he expects the new tenants to open for business sometime this year.

The discount retailer and fitness club tap into the interests of the area residents who were surveyed before leases were signed, he said.

"We've done heaps of research in the surrounding area."

Giant Tiger and Goodlife Fit4Less already have a presence in the Hamilton area. A Giant Tiger banner on the Target location advertises an October opening date.

Neither chain could be reached for comment Thursday.

The new tenants will join Wal-Mart, Canadian Tire, Marshalls, Michaels, Staples, The Beer Store, LCBO, The Brick, Shoppers Drug Mart, Metro, banks and a host of smaller shops at the 74-acre plaza.

Target left a big gap in the centre's landscape when the U.S.-based big-box retailer closed its store in early 2015 amid a retreat from the Canadian market.

Since then, the space has been used for community pop-up events. Right On Target has helped organized a variety of activities, including a market with dozens of vendors and a "playground in a box" for children.

Greenberg said in the "short and medium term" there will be plenty of space left in the former Target for those events to continue. What will happen in the long run, however, hasn't been ironed out.

"Certainly, a permanent solution is what we're after, and we don't know what that will look like at this point in time."

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