Nordstrom coming to Canada (Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Ottawa)

[miketoronto]

Originally Posted by citizen j

^Nordstrom wanted to open their first Toronto store in the Sears Eaton Centre location downtown, but Sears isn't ready to give up that site yet.

Another isssue with this Nordstrom deal is the loss of retail space. Vancouver is basically getting a suburban branch type store plopped in their downtown and potentially losing over 250,000 sq feet of retail space, as the new Nordstrom store will be smaller than the current store on the site.

This is not surprising as American stores have forgotten how to and don't do big stores anymore. This is kinda sad for a site that is currently a 600,000 sq foot store. It further makes the downtown retail offerings no better than your suburban mall when stores like Nordstroms open stores that are no larger than a mall store.

As for the Toronto Sears Eaton Centre. That location needs a store which will use all the retail space available to house a true grand urban store that is unique and not a copy of a suburban branch store.

[spyguy]

Nobody builds those mammoth department stores anymore. Nordstrom should not abandon a successful strategy (financially and in terms of customer satisfaction and brand prestige) on a whim. Certainly not in order to follow the path of retail dinosaurs like Sears.

[miketoronto]

Originally Posted by spyguy

Nobody builds those mammoth department stores anymore. Nordstrom should not abandon a successful strategy (financially and in terms of customer satisfaction and brand prestige) on a whim. Certainly not in order to follow the path of retail dinosaurs like Sears.

Actually they do. Europe and Asia do the big stores yet, and even still expand them and in terms of Asia even build new ones.
The remaining large ones in North America are still the best stores that actually give you a reason to go into them.
Maybe North American stores do so bad, because they are so tiny they don't offer a true selection of items like they used to.

Size aside, North American stores (aside from the few large downtown flagship stores left) just do not have the style they used to. Even Nordstroms pales in comparison to the department stores of Europe. The North American stores are just too much cookie cutter cheap architecture, coupled with little selection. Not surprising when your locations are usually in malls.

Norstroms is also expanding way to much, and with so many stores now, it is seriously going to effect its high-end cache. Holt Renfrew got it right with only having a few stores nation wide, with usually only one in each city.
Norstroms is expanding so much with multiple stores in many American cities, that just does not make it a special draw anymore.

[staff]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

I interpret Nordstrom to mean "north power," or "northern power" I thought Nordstrom was from Canada.

It means "northern stream" (ström can mean a bunch of different things-- electric current being one of them-- in this case it is referring to a body of water with a current-- i.e. a stream) in Swedish, and is not an uncommon family name in Sweden. If the founder of this chain wasn't Swedish or of Swedish heritage, then I bet it is one of those names created to sound like it is European-- like Häagen-Dazs.

[rs913]

Maybe North American stores do so bad, because they are so tiny they don't offer a true selection of items like they used to.

Sure, maybe if one of them decided to go all-in on big retail and build huge 500,000-1,000,000 sqft flagships in downtown locations, they'd clean up.

Or, more realistically, they'd fall on their faces, since consumers in North America just aren't going to suddenly adobt the European habit of flocking downtown to stock up on everything. A bunch of factors contribute to that, not the least of which are that Target, Walmart, Meijer, Fred Mayer, Zeller's, and the Real Canadian Superstore currently fill that role and are much closer to home for 99% of Americans and Canadians.

Sure, the big downtown department stores in Europe are cool, but to insist we should have them here? Don't hold your breath.

[miketoronto]

Originally Posted by rs913

Sure, the big downtown department stores in Europe are cool, but to insist we should have them here? Don't hold your breath.

We already have them and they do pretty well. In fact Macy's does so well they are investing $400 million into their Manhattan location.

Secondly, Nordstroms does not have stuff you would get at a Supermarket.

In terms of high end shopping, I would say Holt Renfrew will still have Nordstroms beat.
For one, Holt Renfrew brings in interesting things from places like England, that Nordstroms can not or does not think of bringing in.
Nordstroms is too much cookie cutter. Where a place like Holt Renfrew really does have some differences that can draw you in, like their Christmas food hall, which like I said always has interesting things from England, Italy, etc, that other stores do not carry.

I was just in a Nordstroms, and yeah its a nice store. But to be honest, it just did not have the style of Holt Renfrew.

We should be supporting and developing our own retail business. Not allowing the US to continue taking over our retail and business landscape. There really should be more laws to prevent US companies from continuing to move up here.

[The Chemist]

Originally Posted by miketoronto

The location of two of Nordstroms stores are troubling for Canadian cities. The Calgary and Toronto locations are seeing their first locations opened in suburban malls.

2 things, Mike. First of all, there's no place available in Downtown Calgary for a large new department store to open. Second, Chinook Centre may not be right downtown, but it's not that far away and it's hardly 'suburban'. If it was Southcentre or one of the suburban power centres where Nordstrom was opening, you might have a point, but Chinook is by far the most central and least suburban of all of Calgary's major malls outside the core itself.

[seaskyfan]

Originally Posted by staff

It means "northern stream" (ström can mean a bunch of different things-- electric current being one of them-- in this case it is referring to a body of water with a current-- i.e. a stream) in Swedish, and is not an uncommon family name in Sweden. If the founder of this chain wasn't Swedish or of Swedish heritage, then I bet it is one of those names created to sound like it is European-- like Häagen-Dazs.

The store was founded and is still run by the Nordstrom family. The founder was an immigrant from Sweden who founded the store (as a shoe store) in 1901 in Seattle.

[J. Will]

Originally Posted by miketoronto

Well tons of department stores build new stores at malls.

And how many new (traditional) malls are built any more? I believe that Crossiron Mills in Calgary is the only large, traditional indoor mall built in Canada since Vaughan Mills was opened in about 2004.

[WhipperSnapper]

(GTA) Yep, most malls are incorporated into much larger, mixed-use projects as the traditional format has been altogether replaced by big box.

Suburban openings usually beat out downtown openings for the very reason as posted above; availability.

[hammersklavier]

Frankly it's unfair to compare Nordstrom with Holt Renfrew--Holt Renfrew is like Saks Fifth Avenue or Barneys New York (and maybe Neiman Marcus*), über-high-end with (usually) only one store in any major market (if that).

Nordstrom is more like Bloomingdale's and Lord & Taylor--high-end enough to be exclusive, but with nowhere near the cachet of what could better be termed style houses.

No American retailer wants to open a new store with more than ~200k sf (unfortunately). Even at 250k sf the Vancouver Nordstrom will still be among the largest in the chain, and about twice as large as the average style house (only ~100k sf**).

It looks like good news for Canada, which previously had no offerings in the range between the Bay (think Macy's) and Holt Renfrew.
__________
* Neiman Marcus is problematic in that it displays some of the characteristic traits of the style house, but not others. Specifically, there's usually only one in any urban area--Bergdorf Goodman counts, New Yorkers--but they tend to be significantly larger than Saks or Barneys.
** Excluding the Fifth Avenue flagships, naturally. For a better picture of style houses' size, turn to San Francisco's Union Square.

[pesto]

I would hold-out for Nordstrom Rack.

[Fiat Lux]

Originally Posted by seaskyfan

The store was founded and is still run by the Nordstrom family. The founder was an immigrant from Sweden who founded the store (as a shoe store) in 1901 in Seattle.

Very prominent Seattle family. One family member once owned the Seattle Seahawks. Another family member has recently joined the group to bring NBA and NHL back to Seattle.

[J. Will]

Originally Posted by hammersklavier

Frankly it's unfair to compare Nordstrom with Holt Renfrew--Holt Renfrew is like Saks Fifth Avenue or Barneys New York (and maybe Neiman Marcus*), über-high-end with (usually) only one store in any major market (if that).

Nordstrom is more like Bloomingdale's and Lord & Taylor--high-end enough to be exclusive, but with nowhere near the cachet of what could better be termed style houses.

No American retailer wants to open a new store with more than ~200k sf (unfortunately). Even at 250k sf the Vancouver Nordstrom will still be among the largest in the chain, and about twice as large as the average style house (only ~100k sf**).

It looks like good news for Canada, which previously had no offerings in the range between the Bay (think Macy's) and Holt Renfrew.
__________
* Neiman Marcus is problematic in that it displays some of the characteristic traits of the style house, but not others. Specifically, there's usually only one in any urban area--Bergdorf Goodman counts, New Yorkers--but they tend to be significantly larger than Saks or Barneys.
** Excluding the Fifth Avenue flagships, naturally. For a better picture of style houses' size, turn to San Francisco's Union Square.

Toronto has three Holt Renfews, all in city limits.

[M II A II R II K]

Also it doesn't matter who own them as long as the stores remain there.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by miketoronto

Actually they do. Europe and Asia do the big stores yet, and even still expand them and in terms of Asia even build new ones.
The remaining large ones in North America are still the best stores that actually give you a reason to go into them.

I'm not seeing all these big new department stores in Europe. The old-line downtown department stores you're referring to have been there for a long time, often dating from the 19th century.

I bet you, just like the U.S. and Canada, most European department stores built in recent decades are in suburban shopping centers.

I think the U.S.-based department stores go wherever they can make a buck. They don't have some natural bias against city centers, and there are plenty of examples where they build new or expand in healthy city centers.

But most prime retail locations, certainly in the U.S., and even to some extent in Canada, are in the suburbs, so most department stores are in the suburbs.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by miketoronto

This is not surprising as American stores have forgotten how to and don't do big stores anymore. This is kinda sad for a site that is currently a 600,000 sq foot store. It further makes the downtown retail offerings no better than your suburban mall when stores like Nordstroms open stores that are no larger than a mall store.

Huh? It's hard to reconcile this complaint with what's happening. The old Sears in downtown Vancouver was nothing special. There are many Sears locations around the metropolitan area. The Nordstrom will be smaller but it will be unique to Vancouver and, finally, that hideous building will be overhauled and hopefully turned into something that does not resemble a toilet bowl.

Vancouver is a very obvious case where something like the 600,000 square foot Sears is moving out because it's not what people in that area want anymore. Similarly suburbanites are not going to pay $20 or whatever it is for parking, nor are they very interested in sitting on transit with a new vacuum cleaner.

[J. Will]

It is unfortunate that large stores (500k+ square feet) are not built in North America anymore, in downtowns or the suburbs. There's just something fascinating about the stores like The Bay on Queen in Toronto (9 stories tall, nearly an entire city block, 1 million square feet of selling space).

[rs913]

Originally Posted by J. Will

It is unfortunate that large stores (500k+ square feet) are not built in North America anymore, in downtowns or the suburbs. There's just something fascinating about the stores like The Bay on Queen in Toronto (9 stories tall, nearly an entire city block, 1 million square feet of selling space).

The only ones in North America are the Macy's locations in NYC, Chicago (formerly Marshall Fields) and SF, the Bloomingdale's in NYC, and the Bay in Toronto. I think it's just those 5.

Interestingly, the "cookie cutter" label really does apply to Nordstrom. All their locations appear virtually identical on the inside, except for the one on the upper levels of the Westfield San Francisco Center.

Bloomingdales is different, with more variation in its stores and even recent experimentation with a smaller "boutique" format in NYC and L.A. It's also more exclusive in its locations and merchandise, staying upscale and cutting-edge while Nordstrom has drifted away from both of those things. It'd be interesting if Bloomie's expanded into Canada. One source suggests that could become reality, interestingly enough with Bloomie's opening stores "within" Hudson's Bay locations.

[miketoronto]

Originally Posted by rs913

The only ones in North America are the Macy's locations in NYC, Chicago (formerly Marshall Fields) and SF, the Bloomingdale's in NYC, and the Bay in Toronto. I think it's just those 5.

Don' forget the Hudson's Bay Company Vancouver Downtown, Montreal Centre-Ville, and Toronto Bloor-Street stores. All are 500,000 sq feet or larger.

Also, Macy's in downtown Seattle, downtown Minneapolis, downtown Pittsburgh, Downtown Houston, and downtown Miami are also large stores.