[Burnaby] Metropolis at Metrotown Redevelopment (Downtown Burnaby)

[SpongeG]

I was at metropolis last week and the Toys R US was still open there.

The mall has really been putting in quite impressive displays and interactive activities and such in their Grand Court area, currently they have an under the sea kind of theme going on, I found a pic of their recent spring theme, they had a really cool dragon for Chinese New Year recently too. They should add a big screen in there now.


wikimedia.org

the dragon

burnabynow


burnabynow

[Spr0ckets]

Originally Posted by jollyburger

I don't think they've relocated yet? It stills show them as open on Google Maps and on the Metropolis website.

Originally Posted by Changing City

The company website shows two stores in Burnaby, one at Metropolis at Metrotown, and one at Station Square.

Originally Posted by SpongeG

I was at metropolis last week and the Toys R US was still open there.

.....

Huh.

I was pretty certain it was closed.

So I did some digging and you are correct, that it is indeed open.
However.....

They did close during the Pandemic, and at the time the thought was that it was permanent closure with the impending Concord redevelopment plans looming.
But they re-opened and the understanding is that the current mall location is more of a "pop-up" situation and the new Station Square store is the long-term Metrotown location (And Burnaby?) going into the future.

The mall location sits under the old Sears store, which means its tenancy is under Concord Pacific (since they bought Sears, obviously....) and not Ivanhoe Cambridge, and because of Concord's redevelopment plans for Phase 2 of it's Metrotown towers, that section of the mall will be demolished once they begin that phase. At a minumum I imagine the old Sears location (and ToysR'Us spot) will serve as staging for the Phase 2A towers as they begin construction of those before they finish the Phase 2B Office and Rental tower.

I also found out that the Parent company of Toys R'Us essentially bought out the leases of Bed, Bath And Beyond locations, which of course went belly up not that long ago.
The plan being to move some of their locations into the much larger Bed, Bath stores - like the Station Square location in this instance.

It just happens in this case that the leases for the two store locations overlapped with the expiring mall lease requiring them to still operate there (?), while they're relocating most all their operations to Station Square which will be their new permanent location once the mall lease expires.
I guess they just didn't want to cancel the mall lease altogether and saw some benefit to keeping it open as a pop-up (especially since that's the location most people are still familiar with) while they establish the new base at Station Square.

[jollyburger]

Moved to the relevant thread.

Originally Posted by Spr0ckets

For obvious reasons.

Aside from the current anchor tenant leases that run for the next few decades into the 2040's and 50's, there's also the fact that it remains one of the strongest performing malls in the wider region, and still one of the top 10 in all of Canada in terms of visitor foot traffic and the sales revenue it generates.

Everybody talks a big game about breaking it up, but that's not likely to happen (fully) in any of our lifetimes.

But that is only assuming you kill the golden goose (commercial mall sales) by doing a phased development of underused space. Metrotown might have super high retail sales but you don't think there's some profit in developing all those towers?

[Spr0ckets]

Originally Posted by jollyburger

Moved to the relevant thread.



But that is only assuming you kill the golden goose (commercial mall sales) by doing a phased development of underused space. Metrotown might have super high retail sales but you don't think there's some profit in developing all those towers?

That's the basic assumption (and risk).

That the profit that will be gleaned from those towers in a development period spanning almost 50 years will outweigh the loss of sales revenue from the retail space you lose by building those towers.

A couple of caveats are obviously in order here.

The original plan was initially proposed when the condo market and high-end condo market were what they currently are not today (.....i.e.....'hot')

Maybe the condo market recovers significantly enough over the next several decades to justify the outlay that this will cost and the corresponding sales loss from breaking up the mall, but I'm highly doubting that the same justification would likely hold water if we're talking about a plan that's proposing primarily mostly or all rental towers.

The reverse caveat of course is implicit in the assumption that the mall will continue to be a high-performer in retail sales revenue generation and that shopping habits will not change significantly (as they currently have to the detriment of other malls elsewhere) to diminish these numbers - such that standing pat and not redeveloping might instead turn out to be a loss in the long run, or indeed a lost opportunity.

I would guess they'll wait a bit to see how well Concord does with their towers at their doorstep in terms of sales before deciding how to proceed and if need be - as their phasing plan suggests - start redevelopment on the parking lots fronting the Superstore on Kingsway and possibly the parking structure adjacent to the Metro Towers office towers on the south side - both of which would have minimal impact on the mall itself, which still has a couple of decades of long-term leases to go before they can do anything to break it up.

At the end of the day, let's not forget or ignore the fact that the mall is a large laaaarge reason why Metrotown Skytrain station is the second busiest station and hub in the entire network after Waterfront station.
And likely to get more so if they ever build that Purple line extension to the north shore.

[Vin]

Originally Posted by jollyburger

Moved to the relevant thread.



But that is only assuming you kill the golden goose (commercial mall sales) by doing a phased development of underused space. Metrotown might have super high retail sales but you don't think there's some profit in developing all those towers?

If you kill off this golden goose without replacing it with something even better, who would care to live in Metrotown, especially if potential home buyers need to pay at such exorbitant costs? Brentwood or even Lougheed would become more attractive by comparison.

[officedweller]

Ivanhoe Cambridge seems to do a very good job of programming that Grand Court.
I doubt you'd see that type of drawing card if it was an outdoor scenario on an open plaza. People enjoy being indoors while shopping.

Other than in downtown Vancouver (Robson or Alberni), is there any other streetfront retail area in Metro Vancouver that has a good mix of clothing and general merchandise stores (rather than bars, restaurants, hairdressors, barbers, nail salons and banks, and including national chain stores)?

[jollyburger]

You assume shopping malls cornered that retail market in those categories so there was no reason for retailers to really venture onto street fronts except in some niche areas like West 4th with active leisure wear or South Granville with home decor/art galleries. And with rent prices it's probably harder for those niche neighbourhoods retail areas to even develop.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Covered (open-air) galleries might square the circle. I get that retailers want to move away from pure indoor malls, but rain and snow make concourses like Brentwood's a lot less practical.

[jollyburger]

From the Retail thread

https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/showpost.php?p=10585074&postcount=19230

Originally Posted by Sheba

To be fair I think the mall redevelopment plan was across 80 years - but yeah I don't see much more happening anytime soon. Plus I agree if they do start anywhere it's likely on the surface parking and the empty Sears and Bay locations, despite their initial plans. Why would they want to pull down the functioning parts of the mall the way real estate is nowadays.

At this point I don't expect anyone to rebuild the overhead walkway to the Skytrain in the next decade. What I want to see is them starting to take out the blocked off section of the old walkway that crosses Central Blvd.

Btw when I e-mailed about it quite awhile ago, I was told building the new walkway would be between the city, mall and TransLink. Also it would connect over by the elevators, basically at the other end of the (current) bus loop, so that may rope Station Square into any discussions about it.

But wouldn't Station Square face the same issue that Anthem will eventually one day want to tear down that section of the mall and redevelop it.

[Sheba]

Originally Posted by jollyburger

But wouldn't Station Square face the same issue that Anthem will eventually one day want to tear down that section of the mall and redevelop it.

Eventually is in the distant future - they redeveloped within the last decade (there's even a thread on it here). That included a "reno" of the sections near Central Blvd (where the movie theatres used to be) that pretty much ripped that section apart and redid it.

[jollyburger]

Originally Posted by Sheba

Eventually is in the distant future - they redeveloped within the last decade (there's even a thread on it here). That included a "reno" of the sections near Central Blvd (where the movie theatres used to be) that pretty much ripped that section apart and redid it.

Seems like the residential tower easements with parkade access etc. might make any redevelopment impractical as well.

[officedweller]

I thought the Holiday Inn was the sticking point for that corner of the Station Square mall. I dont know if that's a long lease or ownership.