Canadian Retail Thread

[esquire]

Originally Posted by eternallyme

Also re: downtown malls, why have they been an enormous success in Toronto and Ottawa, and even successful in Regina and Saskatoon (their main malls are downtown), yet a total failure in other cities, particularly Winnipeg and the mid-sized southern Ontario cities?

Regina and Saskatoon are lucky in that their main regional shopping centres are downtown... from what I've seen, I'd say that's very unusual for North American cities, particularly in the western half of the continent. The other malls in those cities are much smaller and don't really compete with Cornwall and Midtown, although I guess big box power centres have eaten into their market share over the last 20 years.

Winnipeg, by contrast, saw its major malls go up in the suburbs. By the time the big downtown mall went up (Portage Place in 1987), the suburban shopping habit was simply too entrenched. I guess Winnipeg is in sort of in an awkward in-between stage where we were big enough to have a bunch of big suburban malls, but the population isn't large enough to support downtown retail.

It's a bit weird... back in the days of The Bay and Eaton's, downtown completely dominated retail in the city up until the 1960s when the first malls began opening up. Once that happened, it took barely 40 years for downtown retail to almost totally dry up. These days, The Bay is pretty much on life support, Portage Place is practically at neighbourhood mall status, and there is very little storefront retail of any kind except for a small cluster in the Exchange District.

[softee]

Toronto and Ottawa have both huge suburban malls and busy downtown malls because they have healthy, growing downtowns with lots of residential that can support downtown retail.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by OTSkyline

Repost from the Ottawa forum; the Rideau Centre just opened their 3-floor $360-million expansion this week and it looks amazing! Top notch all around. You'll notice the corner brick building is new but all rebuilt using the same bricks and materials that were preserved when they had to take down the old Ogilvie building.

Simons is a nice store to have too. Hopefully they will expand more across Canada. I wish the one here in Vancouver were downtown instead of in Park Royal.

The success of the downtown malls seems a bit random. I wonder how much of it just comes down to the vagaries of where investors decided to build the malls and how the malls themselves were structured. The larger cities like Toronto are big enough that they'd have to have very poor downtown retail not to support at least one half decent mall, and the small cities seem to go either way.

Victoria is another Western city that does have a decent downtown mall and a reasonable assortment of downtown storefront retail. Victoria's mall is also fairly well designed and fits into the fabric of the city, including the block pattern and the smaller historic commercial buildings nearby.

Downtown Halifax has many indoor malls of various sizes (probably 7 or 8 in total?) and they are all pretty lacklustre, although the total assortment of downtown shops is pretty good (even chains prefer storefronts to the malls). The biggest one, Scotia Square, has aged incredibly poorly, and was built around the 1950's notion that suburban shoppers would drive in to shop there as a single destination. I'm guessing most visitors in the city don't even know it's a mall; the owner is just now trying to open it up to the street more but a good part of the main facade has the building's mechanicals behind it so options are limited.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by esquire

Regina and Saskatoon are lucky in that their main regional shopping centres are downtown... from what I've seen, I'd say that's very unusual for North American cities, particularly in the western half of the continent. The other malls in those cities are much smaller and don't really compete with Cornwall and Midtown, although I guess big box power centres have eaten into their market share over the last 20 years.

Kingston almost joined this club, too.

Our main mall is the suburban Cataraqui Centre which was built in the 1980s. The owners originally wanted it built in the downtown core, which would have required demolishing three entire blocks of 19th century buildings. The city council of the day controversially approved it but the OMB overturned it, so it was built in the suburbs instead.

Having seen how successful downtown malls in Toronto and Ottawa have been at bringing people into the city, a part of me does wish the downtown mall had been built here.. but then I shudder at the loss of heritage that would have resulted.

[theman23]

Originally Posted by OTSkyline

Repost from the Ottawa forum; the Rideau Centre just opened their 3-floor $360-million expansion this week and it looks amazing! Top notch all around. You'll notice the corner brick building is new but all rebuilt using the same bricks and materials that were preserved when they had to take down the old Ogilvie building.

Fantastic. Was just in Ottawa a few weeks ago and there seems to be a lot of positive changes recently or on the way .

Originally Posted by Klazu

Guildford Town Centre in Surrey, BC.

Very nice as well, but I've noticed a lot of empty store fronts the when I was there a few days ago. The mall could use some upper middle tier clothing retailers to fit the new look. Banana republic or club Monaco would be nice. Right now it's a lot your standard value priced retailers and filler insurance brokers and nail salons.

[J.OT13]

Rideau Centre has one of the best locations, between the University of Ottawa (42,000 students), the ByWard Market (biggest non-Federal tourist draw) and the CBD with 100,000 high paying jobs.

As mentioned, the high density residential and the fact that it is a major transit hub is also a huge help.

Worth noting that the first 20 years, Rideau had a rough time. It's only in the last 10-15 years, the time downtown has seen a major increase in office and residential construction, that it has become one of the top 10 performing malls in Canada.

[hipster duck]

Apart from Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver are there any Canadian cities where you'll find mid-range chain clothing stores on a downtown main street, rather than a mall?

I'm talking about stores like Abercrombie & Fitch, the Gap, Aldo, Town Shoes, etc.

In the three big cities, these stores usually have both a downtown mall presence and a downtown street presence a few blocks away.

In every other city, my impression is that these kinds of stores would be in a mall. It could be a downtown mall, or a suburban mall, but they're still going to exclusively be found in malls.

[manny_santos]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

Kingston almost joined this club, too.

Our main mall is the suburban Cataraqui Centre which was built in the 1980s. The owners originally wanted it built in the downtown core, which would have required demolishing three entire blocks of 19th century buildings. The city council of the day controversially approved it but the OMB overturned it, so it was built in the suburbs instead.

Having seen how successful downtown malls in Toronto and Ottawa have been at bringing people into the city, a part of me does wish the downtown mall had been built here.. but then I shudder at the loss of heritage that would have resulted.

On the bright side, the location of the Cat Centre isn't even that far a drive out of the downtown, although I wish it was in a more central location such as near Princess and John Counter rather than out past Gardiners Road. I'm glad that was never located downtown.

[manny_santos]

Originally Posted by Acajack

There are a number of factors but I'd say a big success element is that in Toronto and Ottawa the downtown malls are located at major transit hubs.

London's main problem was that had way too much retail space for its size at the beginning of a recession in the early 1990s; by the time Galleria had opened downtown in 1989, there was already Masonville Place, White Oaks Mall, and Westmount Mall as major suburban malls, as well as numerous secondary malls such as Argyle, Oakridge, Northland, and Sherwood Forest. Both Westmount and White Oaks had expanded within a year before Galleria opened, and Masonville underwent an expansion in 1991. All that for a city of, at that time, only about 290,000. In essence there was a massive increase in retail square footage in London between 1988 and 1991, which London's economy was ultimately unable to handle.

London's two major postsecondary educational institutions are both in suburban areas, which also contributes. When I first lived in Kingston a number of years ago I initially couldn't figure out how their downtown supported two grocery stores (while London hadn't had one since the 1980s) and had so much more retail activity than London's downtown, then I realized their retail was being driven heavily by Queen's students who are within walking distance of downtown. If Western or Fanshawe College had main campuses adjacent to downtown London, London's downtown would be much different today than it is.

Another problem London's downtown has faced is sky-high parking costs - many Londoners I have known over the years refuse to go downtown unless they absolutely have to, because of the parking costs. Parts of Downtown Toronto have cheaper parking than anywhere in Downtown London.

[Pinus]

Originally Posted by SaskScraper

My guess is either Saskatoon or Victoria will get the next Ikea in Canada. Victoria for Vancouver Island's 3/4million population. Nanaimo with over 100,000 people is 1½ drive from Victoria's CMA of 365,000 which adds to catchment area. Saskatoon with CMA over 300,000.. >3/4million within ~2hr drive radius.

http://thestarphoenix.com/business/l...in-next-decade

Dream on. No way is IKEA going to waste their time with small-town Saskabush.

[miketoronto]

Originally Posted by softee

Toronto and Ottawa have both huge suburban malls and busy downtown malls because they have healthy, growing downtowns with lots of residential that can support downtown retail.

We really need to get off the myth that downtown residential keeps downtown retail going. Downtown residents do not support the kind of retail you see in downtown Toronto, and even to an extent in Ottawa. Major retail districts like those in downtown Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, etc, must draw a metropolitan wide audience.

It should also be noted that Ottawa had a sort of ban on suburban retail expansion for a period. Expansion of existing and new malls in the suburbs was banned until downtown Ottawa retail sales rebounded to a specific percentage. This ban on suburban retail was one reason the Rideau Centre was built downtown, because it was the only area allowed to have retail expansion.
The ban is gone now. But Ottawa was proactive at one time in working to maintain downtown retail.


The smaller cities did not do well with downtown malls, because they allowed suburban malls to be built as well. In a city of only 50,000 or 100,000, you just cannot support two retail areas.

One trend to have a small concern about, is the recent trend of super expensive stores opening their first Toronto location at Yorkdale, or even their largest store at Yorkdale.
This would have been almost unheard of before, for high end store to open their first Toronto location in a suburban mall, or even their flagship store.
This trend is definitely having a negative effect on Bloor Street.

[flipv]

Mike, I agree that too many openings at Yorkdale are having a detrimental effect on Bloor and maybe even Yorkville itself...

Sure, there are many efficiencies in having one landlord and being able to build to suit. This doesn't exist on Bloor and is very slowly appearing on Yorkville due to First Capital's buying spree. There are already results there by pulling Chanel and Christian Louboutin north of Bloor. I see many of the Yorkdale stores eventually shuttering in favour of that big flagship downtown. There just isn't the right space on Bloor or even Yokville for all of them.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by Pinus

Dream on. No way is IKEA going to waste their time with small-town Saskabush.

If IKEA really intends to increase their flagship store count to 24 from 12, then where are you suggesting they will build them.

There are only 9 cities in the country with populations even approaching a million people. There are only so many IKEA stores that can be crammed into the GTA and Montreal can support no more than three stores and Vancouver two.

At least some of these stores will have to be built in smaller regional centers. I don't think Saskatoon is entirely out of the question.

Halifax is getting one. I can also see London, Saskatoon and Victoria (amongst cities with less than 800k people). Quebec City should get one too. Even by my reckoning, that's only about 20 stores. Where will the other four go???

[WhipperSnapper]

I'm not aware Ikea has any plans to open new stores in Canada and certainly not 12. They can cram another 3 or 4 stores in the GTA. There nothing east of Leslie Street in the GTA or close to downtown.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by WhipperSnapper

I'm not aware Ikea has any plans to open new stores in Canada and certainly not 12. They can cram another 3 or 4 stores in the GTA. There nothing east of Leslie Street in the GTA or close to downtown.

From Financial Post:

http://business.financialpost.com/ne...ing-web-visits

Personally, I'm hoping for a pick-up point location in Moncton to complement the new full service showroom store at Dartmouth Crossing in Halifax.

[caltrane74]

Eaton Centre LED Billboards being installed.

[ue]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

From Financial Post:

http://business.financialpost.com/ne...ing-web-visits

Personally, I'm hoping for a pick-up point location in Moncton to complement the new full service showroom store at Dartmouth Crossing in Halifax.

1 for Victoria
1 more for Lower Mainland (Langley, Abbotsford, North Van...)
1 more for Calgary (NW, maybe near CIM)
1 more for Edmonton (north/west end)
1 for Saskatoon/Regina
1 for London
1 for K-W
1 more in Western/Northern GTA (Miss, Bram, Newmarket, Markham...)
1 in Eastern GTA (Scarborough, Whitby, Oshawa)
1 more for Ottawa-Gatineau (East side, Gatineau)
1-2 more for Montreal (Laval, Blainville, Terrebonne...)
1 for Quebec City
1 for Halifax

That's how I see it playing out. There's only so much options in a small population country like Canada.

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

From Financial Post:

http://business.financialpost.com/ne...ing-web-visits

Personally, I'm hoping for a pick-up point location in Moncton to complement the new full service showroom store at Dartmouth Crossing in Halifax.

Different than what I have heard from Ikea Canada not too long ago. They were planning any full sized stores in the near future.

[SpongeG]

Originally Posted by ue

1 for Victoria
1 more for Lower Mainland (Langley, Abbotsford, North Van...)
1 more for Calgary (NW, maybe near CIM)
1 more for Edmonton (north/west end)
1 for Saskatoon/Regina
1 for London
1 for K-W
1 more in Western/Northern GTA (Miss, Bram, Newmarket, Markham...)
1 in Eastern GTA (Scarborough, Whitby, Oshawa)
1 more for Ottawa-Gatineau (East side, Gatineau)
1-2 more for Montreal (Laval, Blainville, Terrebonne...)
1 for Quebec City
1 for Halifax

That's how I see it playing out. There's only so much options in a small population country like Canada.

having recently moved to the island, the lack of an IKEA has been hard, i needed so many little things that i know i could get at IKEA but only option is a jysk walmart or dollarama or thrift stores which are ridiculosuly expensive, like $30 for an ugly lamp, really?

I am surprised that victoria area only has 2 walmarts, the one in langford is small and has a total lack of product, i live near duncan and the duncan area walmart is huge and has an entire aisle devoted to just mirrors and frames for example, the langford store has a small maybe 8 foot section of an aisle for them and the selection is about 1/3 of what they carry at the duncan store, same goes for most departments

I wonder where they could fit in an IKEA for the victoria area, i imagine more towards langford where costco and some of the big box stores are, the costco is only about a 30 minute drive from the cowichan valley. Having it out on the saanich peninsula makes it a lot further and frustrating for people north of victoria, traffic in victoria is awful, if its 5 pm i don't even bother trying to leave, it literally took me 60 minutes to go 4 blocks one time trying to get out, the back up starts where mayfair mall is and is bumper to bumper for a few kms north

[ue]

If Halifax is getting an IKEA, I can't see why Victoria wouldn't be able to support one with the large expansion IKEA is planning. It doesn't have that many less people than Halifax and many more within access on the Island further north.

To your other point, it seems as though if anything, Victoria is underretailed, if such a thing exists.

This will be an unpopular opinion, but a city like Victoria needs more proper freeways to connect various parts of the region together better. That, or a very robust and frequent mass transit system, which I don't think Victoria is big enough to support. Looking at a map, it isn't hard to believe Victoria is a congested nightmare. Other cities in Canada have this issue to some extent as well.