Halifax Retail

[someone123]

Yeah, I was really hoping that it would all become one development, but it's pretty clear that won't be happening anytime soon.

Having a little corner building would be odd but could be interesting. I can imagine a nice L-shaped building for that corner that would be better than the empty lot and houses that exist there today.

[icetea93]

News:

Toys R Us Express is now open at Halifax Shopping Centre

[Jstaleness]

I heard today that Big Box Electronic stores have been having some rough times. Best Buy has lost money in the last 5 quarters and are closing some of their poorer performing stores. They must have saw demand in Halifax though as you wouldn't normally build stores if sales were slipping.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Jstaleness

I heard today that Big Box Electronic stores have been having some rough times. Best Buy has lost money in the last 5 quarters and are closing some of their poorer performing stores. They must have saw demand in Halifax though as you wouldn't normally build stores if sales were slipping.

I vastly prefer online retailers to Best Buy.

[Jstaleness]

You are not alone. That's what they are blaming the losses on. Typically there is more website discounts than in store. I wonder if people would be more inclined to shop at the physical site if a discount greater than website price was offered? It is certainly easier to shop at home though as the product info available almost makes it a non issue to "try it out first".

[icetea93]

Just announced target stores:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/target-...-84-additional-zellers-leases-2011-09-23

In Nova Scotia this includes:
Amherst
Greenwood
Halifax (2 more- Bayer's Lake and Cole Harbor Road, Dartmouth)
Sydney (2)

So after this announcement, Halifax will have 4 Target stores opening in early 2013!

I'm surprised they chose Amherst and Greenwood over Truro and New Glasgow...

[RyeJay]

Originally Posted by icetea93

Just announced target stores:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/target-...-84-additional-zellers-leases-2011-09-23

In Nova Scotia this includes:
Amherst
Cole Harbour
Greenwood
Halifax (Bayer's Lake, so add that to the already announced and that gives us 3 stores)
Sydney (2)


I'm surprised they chose Amherst and Greenwood over Truro and New Glasgow...

If they didn't choose Greenwood, they would be quite far from our populations in the Annaoplis Valley. People in Truro will definitely travel to Greenwood, as will populations further south (even as far as Yarmouth).

Not choosing New Glasgow does surprise me, however.

[icetea93]

Originally Posted by RyeJay

If they didn't choose Greenwood, they would be quite far from our populations in the Annaoplis Valley. People in Truro will definitely travel to Greenwood, as will populations further south (even as far as Yarmouth).

Not choosing New Glasgow does surprise me, however.

But really, Amherst over Truro/New Glasgow? NG is farther from Halifax/Moncton unlike Truro/Amherst so they definitely could've used a store. Also, Truro being the largest town in Atlantic Canada (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Canada) could've supported their own store as well. Maybe they will be in Truro/NG in the future... it just confuses me how Amherst made the cut when much larger population centres didn't.

[David1gray]

I have worked for the New Glasgow store in the past. There are only a few reasons that they wouldn't pick NG that I could think of:

1. The store is reallllyyyyy old. Something like 60 years..... Wal-mart has a brand new store that is in 10x better shape. Who wants to go to a old run down store when they can go to a nice new store.

And now that i think about it, I probably shouldn't say the second. A lot of it has to do with the way the store was managed.... Hopefully they can find a way to keep the store open as whatever, but when i was done there in August it didn't seem too good. We will see I guess.

Some reasons that I think the store could improve if left open:

1. Obviously a new store. Maybe build in the Albion Place Power Centre.

2. If not a new store, renovate. The current store definitely needs a bigger stock room.... you can trust me on that one. And redo the whole sales floor, you can see its age.

3. Maybe some better leadership.

4. Location wise, as stated by some other people, farther from other selected locations such as Halifax, Moncton, etc. Amherst doesn't make sense to me since they are closer to Moncton. I guess that's just the way the cookie crumbles.

[q12]

Looks like there will be 5 Walmart stores in Halifax and 3 Target stores.

Sydney is going to have 3 Walmart stores and 1 Target Store.

Target mum on new locations

By JOANN ALBERSTAT Business Reporter
Sat, Sep 24 - 4:55 AM

http://thechronicleherald.ca/Business/1264796.html

ZELLERS NEWS

Here’s what’s happening to the 13 Zellers stores in Nova Scotia.

•Five may become Target stores or sold: Amherst, Bedford, Dartmouth (Mic Mac Mall), Halifax (Bayers Lake), Sydney

•Three will become Walmart stores: Dartmouth (Colby Village), Greenwood, North Sydney

•Five will remain Zellers locations: Bridgewater, New Glasgow, New Minas, Truro, Yarmouth

Source: HBC, Wal-Mart, Target

[icetea93]

Yes, sorry for saying all of them would become Target, I jumped the 🞵🞵🞵 yesterday and then read the article in the chronicle herald that said otherwise.

[icetea93]

Mic Mac Mall
- Aerie by American Eagle Outiffters is now open on the lower level
- Toys R Us' lease is not up until January 2012, so it is rumoured that when the DC Toys R Us store opens the MMM location will become a outlet version until the end of its lease
- Toys R Us will leave an empty space in Mic Mac Mall of 30 977 sq.ft. which would be perfect for Forever 21's XXI Forever (large format) store which sells men's and women's apparel. Forever 21 has been looking for a space in Halifax for a while now and this seems like a perfect opportunity for MMM to land another significant destination store.

Halifax Shopping Centre
- Rockport Shoes will open Fall 2011
- Toys R Us Express is now open on the upper level
- Black's Photography has relocated away from the large Dollarama space into a new store down the hall on the first floor. This is interesting because its only a matter of time before Dollarama's lease expires and there is very little chance that HSC will want to keep a discount store in the mall during their attempt to turn upscale. This would leave a significant space (Black's old space + Dollarama's) of about 12 000 sq.ft. open on the bottom floor that could be filled by a Zara which is interested in Halifax or other stores (Apple Store, Guess, Aritzia, Abercrombie & Fitch, etc.)

Dartmouth Crossing
Opening soon:
- Woody's Bar-B-Q
- Banana Republic Factory Outlet
- Pier 1 Imports
- Barnes & Castle
- McDonalds
- Toys R Us

[icetea93]

Very interesting find:

http://google.brand.edgar-online.com/EFX...ML1?ID=6507344&SessionID=wsxWWSsb1g5Mjl7

According to this document, the headquarters of Abercrombie & Fitch Canada Stores Co. is in Halifax...

[hoser111]

Originally Posted by icetea93

Very interesting find:

http://google.brand.edgar-online.com/EFX...ML1?ID=6507344&SessionID=wsxWWSsb1g5Mjl7

According to this document, the headquarters of Abercrombie & Fitch Canada Stores Co. is in Halifax...

As are many(most?) US companies operating in Canada due to a favorable environment in Nova Scotia for unlimited liability corporations....(way beyond my understanding).

I work for a major US corporation and our Canadian HQ is Toronto... but on paper we're registered in NS.

[coolmillion]

The downtown malls have never looked worse. Barrington Place Shops is about half-empty, Park Lane needs some new anchors and a serious makeover and Scotia Square is mostly a food court (albeit a good one). What do all three have in common? They're owned by Crombie Reit and have the same leasing manager. It seems to me that they could attract major tenants if they invested in renovations and upgrades. Instead the company seems content to run them into the ground. Scotia Square has had some work recently but the street frontage on Barrington is a disaster (greasy vents, blank walls). This situation drives me crazy.

[MonctonRad]

Crombie REIT owns Highfield Square in Moncton too, which is about 80% vacant.

It seems like they couldn't care less. The vultures have been circling Highfield for at least a half decade.....

[someone123]

Originally Posted by coolmillion

The downtown malls have never looked worse. Barrington Place Shops is about half-empty, Park Lane needs some new anchors and a serious makeover and Scotia Square is mostly a food court (albeit a good one). What do all three have in common? They're owned by Crombie Reit and have the same leasing manager. It seems to me that they could attract major tenants if they invested in renovations and upgrades. Instead the company seems content to run them into the ground. Scotia Square has had some work recently but the street frontage on Barrington is a disaster (greasy vents, blank walls). This situation drives me crazy.

Park Lane is particularly sad because the rest of the street is quite successful and there's tons of demand for retail space. A few years ago, City Centre Atlantic was dead inside but then some effort went in to renovating, Pete's was added, and it seems to be doing much better today. Whoever did that reno could have instead sat back and said "bad economy", letting the mall decline for years.

Many of the owners of downtown office buildings and retail just seem sort of hapless or checked out to me -- they are sitting around wondering why people aren't materializing to lease space that was designed for the 1970s and 80s. When the office market looked pretty good we saw a ton of new proposals that were basically re-skinned 1980s buildings, and now that it's soft again those projects have been shelved. These owners clearly aren't putting a lot of effort into adaptive reuse that suits the market, and the "bad economy" excuse again is an ugly fallback.

King's Wharf is going forward at full speed. The Clyde Street lots look like they'll be developed within a year or two of coming to market. There is tons of demand for space. It just has to be the right kind.

There are similar issues along Barrington. Starfish has been very successful renovating numerous heritage properties like the building with Oddjects, Espace, and the Morse's Teas building. I'm not sure I believe that the other buildings can't be filled or are just less desirable for some reason.

I used to say that negativity was my least favourite thing about Halifax. I should refine that. The real problem is that too many people are passive and eager to blame the city or economy when the real limiting factor is a lack of personal motivation and creativity. Maybe this comes from being a government town.

[q12]

Clyde Street retail, residential development moves ahead

http://thechronicleherald.ca/Business/1266921.html
By REMO ZACCAGNA Business Reporter
Thu, Oct 6 - 4:53 AM
A final design for a commercial and residential development on two large downtown Halifax lots will be ready sometime in November.

W.M. Fares Group and Banc Developments purchased two parking lots on Clyde Street, divided by Birmingham Street, in June for $14.7 million.

They plan to build two nine-storey buildings — one floor of commercial retail space and the rest residential — with each having three levels of underground parking.

It also says in the story there will be "70,000 square feet of retail space in the ground floors of the two buildings"

[worldlyhaligonian]

Originally Posted by icetea93

I heard that waits are still over an hour to pay, which is incredible considering this is on a weekday and 4 days after they opened!

My hope is that Abercrombie & Fitch Co. will see the massive sales and open other stores in HSC like Abercrombie & Fitch, abercrombie kids, and Gilly Hicks. To be honest, I don't really want to see duplicates of any of these stores anywhere around here because I really don't want these brands to become American Eagle or Aeropostale... which you can find in every large mall in every city and will not attract people from elsewhere. Fortunately, I remember reading in an article a little while ago that Abercrombie & Fitch Co. wanted to expand only into Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Halifax and Ottawa. They wanted to expand into the biggest city in every market (like Halifax in Atlantic Canada) so that these cities would have stores to serve that market, and their brands would always remain an upscale destination store. Aeropostale is a good example of what used to be a destination store. They opened in Halifax first and were drawing people from all over NB, PEI, and somewhat NFLD. Now they are in every city (Moncton, Saint John, etc.) and people do not come here from outside NS to shop at Aeropostale anymore. (Like American Eagle, Bath & Body Works, etc.)
I really hope they stick to this limited expansion plan, because they would benefit Halifax massively (in retail/economic terms), especially during Christmas season and back-to-school time when people will chose to shop in the cities with the biggest destination stores (like Halifax in Atlantic Canada).

Note:
There are currently 9 Hollister stores in Canada (all in the cities mentioned above, except Ottawa (at the moment), and smaller cities within close proximity to Greater Toronto).

There are 4 Abercrombie & Fitch stores in Canada (Toronto (2), Calgary, Edmonton).

Ugh, these brands are a joke.

Where is Lacoste, Hugo Boss, and Ralph Lauren!

[Keith P.]

Any REIT is not going to invest big money unless a 🞵🞵🞵 is to their head. The nature of the beast requires them to return most of the cash from these properties back to the shareholders. They will do basic maintenance but not much else until the wheels really start to come off. It is a bad model for spaces like this.