The Retail Thread

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by Ramsayfarian

Thanks.. I'll try to muster the courage for a visit.

your MazdaSpeed 3's smiley face grill will turn into a frown when you go there

[artvandelay]

Originally Posted by DizzyEdge

Question: Can anyone comment on which Winners in town would be best for mens wear, such as 'business wear', casual, and shoes? I'm assuming not just one location would be the best for all three of those, but I could be wrong.

I believe that the Stephen Ave. location stocks more formal attire than the others. Although you should take this with a grain of salt as I'm only an occasional Winners shopper.

[AB Born]

CrossIron Mills is going to be getting a Fionn MacCool's Irish Pub... complete with live music. There is one in Calgary in the Sheraton Eau Claire.

[Jimby]

Originally Posted by AB Born

CrossIron Mills is going to be getting a Fionn MacCool's Irish Pub... complete with live music. There is one in Calgary in the Sheraton Eau Claire.

will they be importing the musicians from Calgary?

[DizzyEdge]

Fionn MacCools has east coast style jam sessions (or seisuns if you want to spell it gaelic-y) on Wed eve's, kinda cool.

[artvandelay]

I was creeping the Vancouver retail thread and stumbled upon some shots of their recently renovated downtown HBC store. It's interesting to note that the Vancouver flagship has was designed by the same architects (Burke, Harwood and White of Toronto) as our downtown store, and essentially has the same design; the key differences being that the Vancouver store has cylindrical columns and lacks the beautiful pedestrian arcade that Calgary store has. Anyway these shots give an indication of what our store could look like should HBC decide to invest some money in it:

Originally Posted by dreambrother808

Here are some photos of the lighting. In person, the details of the columns are nicely emphasized.



my photos

New awnings:

Originally Posted by entheosfog

The recently installed Bay canopy:

Our store had nearly identical awnings on the two entrances off of 7th Avenue. You can see them here in this Glenbow photo:


Glenbow Archives

Excuse this for being somewhat off topic, but HBC is one of my favourite buildings in the city, and I'd like to see it shown some love.

[Calgarian]

Would love to see that building get renovated, definitely one of the gems in DT.

[freeweed]

Originally Posted by AB Born

CrossIron Mills is going to be getting a Fionn MacCool's Irish Pub... complete with live music. There is one in Calgary in the Sheraton Eau Claire.

Wait - what?? Is this some kind of joke?

I don't feel the complete hate-on for CIM that many of you have, I see its purpose and think that for what it is, it works. But... wtf?? A pub? In Balzac?

Who in the hell is going to frequent that place? And how quickly can we overcome our provincial infrastructure deficit by planting a permanent Checkstop outside its doors?

[MalcolmTucker]

There are no fines for driving over 0.05 (administrative suspension) or 0.08 (criminal).

[AB Born]

A Great Wolf Lodge would be a good location on the land beside CrossIron. From what I hear the mall has slow business on the weekdays but the weekends are making up for it tenfold.

[yads]

Originally Posted by freeweed

Wait - what?? Is this some kind of joke?

I don't feel the complete hate-on for CIM that many of you have, I see its purpose and think that for what it is, it works. But... wtf?? A pub? In Balzac?

Who in the hell is going to frequent that place? And how quickly can we overcome our provincial infrastructure deficit by planting a permanent Checkstop outside its doors?

Not too sure why the outrage. Presumably it's to provide a place to eat and grab a drink for people who came to shop for the day. It's out of the way, so presumably most visitors make a day of coming up there. So a pub makes sense.

[freeweed]

Originally Posted by yads

Not too sure why the outrage. Presumably it's to provide a place to eat and grab a drink for people who came to shop for the day. It's out of the way, so presumably most visitors make a day of coming up there. So a pub makes sense.

Outrage isn't quite what I tried to convey - more incomprehension.

"Eat and grab a drink after shopping" is Moxie's. An Irish pub with live music is so far from what the average suburbanite does during shopping that it's hard to really explain what I mean. It's like something out of the twilight zone.

Licensed restaurants in this country tend to cover off the "have a drink". Pubs and bars are almost exclusively "get drunk" territory. At least in the west. Not that you CAN'T just eat and have one drink, but it's just not terribly common. At least not in any Irish pub I've ever been to (and sadly that's a lot, I have way too many Irish friends and while they make fun of our weak attempts to copy their culture, they always go for the footy and rugby).

I dunno, to me this is only one step below putting Cowboys in CIM. It just seems doomed to failure, but I guess if they want to waste their money on a pub that hardly serves any alcohol, it's theirs to waste.

[Elbownian]

I'm going to hazard a guess you haven't visited a Fionn MacCool's recently - we only have the one here, but they're commonplace in Toronto and Ottawa. It's more like a Moxie's/Milestones with pub food, more taps, occasional live music and servers that look less like prostitutes. They fit well in hotels, so attaching to malls doesn't seem like that much of a stretch.

For the record, I eat almost exclusively at pubs and I don't even drink. Better value for the food, good atmosphere and no children screaming in my ear! With the nearest alternative being a mall food court, I can see this being an attractive option. Not that I'd ever set foot in Crossiron Mills, mind...

[Cage]

Originally Posted by freeweed

Who in the hell is going to frequent that place?

With the movie theatre beside the Pub, it will be frequented by those looking for dinner and movie date night.

Also the BP's across the hallway is chock a block with young families so anyone looking for a more adult oriented dinning experience would frequent the pub.

Finally that same BPs usually has a 1/2 hour waitlist most Friday and Saturday nights, an additional food and beverage expansion is needed.

Originally Posted by freeweed

And how quickly can we overcome our provincial infrastructure deficit by planting a permanent Checkstop outside its doors?

MD Rockyview RCMP all ready do a booming business at CIM. Distracted driving, speeding, checkstop, parking in firelane, and seatbelts are common infractions.

[freeweed]

Originally Posted by Elbownian

For the record, I eat almost exclusively at pubs and I don't even drink. Better value for the food, good atmosphere and no children screaming in my ear! With the nearest alternative being a mall food court, I can see this being an attractive option. Not that I'd ever set foot in Crossiron Mills, mind...

Time will certainly tell, but the cross section of "can't stand kids", "wants a pub", "would actually go to CIM" doesn't seem that large. As is evidenced quite regularly by people on these very forums.

But hey, it's not like half of the businesses at CIM haven't already closed and been replaced by something else.

[jlowry24]

The Best Buy on 17th opened today, though the official grand opening is next weekend. It's a really nice store, not surprisingly smaller than the suburban outlets (not much in the way of appliances), but a good selection of electronics and very helpful employees. Two other stores have opened on the ground floor of the building - Swimco and Wild Mountain. Now all we need is a Target in the Beltline area and we'll be set!

[Spring2008]

^Beltline could also use a movie theatre. Besides the First South location, i think the16th ave and 8th street SW-Medicentre site, is ideal for either a theatre or some other mixed use development that incorporates big-box urban format.

[DizzyEdge]

And Canadian Tire would be nice too.

[DizzyEdge]

Hey, the new development on the Chinook site is supposed to be a million square feet. Does anyone know how much of that would be actual retail?

[Rusty van Reddick]

Originally Posted by Spring2008

^Beltline could also use a movie theatre.

Especially since, as was reported in today's Metro, The Globe might be closing at the end of next month