Canadian Retail Thread

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by Airboy

2 EB store in Edmonton

Toys are Use are in creditor protection and closing more stores.

One Eddie Bauer in Moncton.

We already lost our Toys R Us last year (but we got a suitable replacement - Clement out of Quebec).

[Loco101]

The Station Mall in Sault Ste Marie ON still has an Eddie Bauer store that opened in 2016. I believe it's the only location in Northern Ontario. Sudbury which is much larger never had one. Thunder Bay did at one point but it closed awhile ago. I'm not sure why the Sault location has remained open up until now. I found it way too expensive. Maybe quite a few Americans shop there? More recently, it's amazing to see how many American plates there are at that mall.

However, I do have a quite a bit of Eddie Bauer clothing but I bought it all at Costco. MUCH cheaper!! I'm guessing that the brand will still have clothing items selling there. Costco has had so many different clothing brands over the years. Recently I've noticed that they carry the GAP and Banana Republic items.

[Loco101]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

There are no Toys R Us stores left in Atlantic Canada.

The Moncton store has been converted to Clement out of Quebec.

A lot of locations have closed in Ontario as well. The closest one to me that was in Sudbury closed a year or two ago. The Thunder Bay one is gone as well. Closest is now in Barrie. And there aren't many left even within the GTA. I was surprised that London lost its store yet Kingston still has one but will probably be gone soon.

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

We already lost our Toys R Us last year (but we got a suitable replacement - Clement out of Quebec).

If there's a Canadian company from Quebec that can fill the gap of Toys R Us why are they not expanding across the country?

[SpongeG]

Mastermind Toys is everywhere in Canada isn't it?

I know they opened pop-ups in Holt Renfrew stores this past Christmas.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by Wigs

If there's a Canadian company from Quebec that can fill the gap of Toys R Us why are they not expanding across the country?

They are just beginning to expand outside la belle province. Their first store hors Quebec was in Ottawa. Moncton is the second. They are preparing to take over the former TRU location at McAllister Place in Saint John.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by SpongeG

Mastermind Toys is everywhere in Canada isn't it?

I know they opened pop-ups in Holt Renfrew stores this past Christmas.

We have one in Moncton.

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by SpongeG

Mastermind Toys is everywhere in Canada isn't it?

I forgot we have one in St. Catharines. But only one toy chain store for a region of 551,000+ people seems lacking. There's got to be more options than just Walmart or online from Amazon

Maybe the Québec chain, Clement can expand quickly

[whatnext]

An article one year after HBC filed for creditor protection summarizing what's up with their old stores:

A year after HBC's collapse, some reimagined spaces — and a lot of vacant stores
-Four days before Christmas, shoppers lined up around the Bay Centre in Victoria, B.C., where a corner of the mall had been transformed into a scene reminiscent of a London high street.
Tara Deschamps, The Canadian Press
about 5 hours ago

...Canada's oldest company Hudson's Bay filed for creditor protection on March 7, 2025, under the weight of $1.1 billion in debt. The move kick-started a complex legal process that's still ongoing as the 355-year-old business winds down, and resulted in the closure of its 80 stores and 16 more under its sister Saks banners.

A year later, a Canadian Press analysis has found the vast majority — at least 73 former Hudson's Bay or Saks stores — are still empty, though a few of those have tenants preparing to move in. Some of those sites were once among the country's most prized shopping properties — along the stretch leading up to Toronto's Eaton Centre, by the ByWard Market in Ottawa and in the hearts of downtown Vancouver, Montreal and Calgary....

https://www.biv.com/news/retail-manu...tores-11965705

[someone123]

It feels like downtown retail in Vancouver has been in the doldrums for a few years. Pacific Centre is kind of underwhelming, Nordstrom is gone, the Bay is gone. Robson is maybe a bit less nice than it was, although it still has many higher end stores and comparatively few vacancies. Simons would be good, but it's in Park Royal.

I think food options have declined a bit as well. There's still an abundance of very good higher end places (Michelin star or bib gourmand and the like), but there are more and more crappy low end places including ones now with seemingly AI-generated marketing materials and maybe menus. Food quality in the medium and low end has declined for some reasons that probably afflict the whole country. So many of them just aren't worth going to and the good affordable stand-by places of the past have been dwindling.

All of this is happening as residential rents and condo prices are very high downtown and there is a large, growing population. On paper, you'd think the area would be thriving. It is a stagflation sort of situation.

Some areas of town have improved, like Mount Pleasant.

[csbvan]

Originally Posted by someone123

It feels like downtown retail in Vancouver has been in the doldrums for a few years. Pacific Centre is kind of underwhelming, Nordstrom is gone, the Bay is gone. Robson is maybe a bit less nice than it was, although it still has many higher end stores and comparatively few vacancies. Simons would be good, but it's in Park Royal.

I think food options have declined a bit as well. There's still an abundance of very good higher end places (Michelin star or bib gourmand and the like), but there are more and more crappy low end places including ones now with seemingly AI-generated marketing materials and maybe menus. Food quality in the medium and low end has declined for some reasons that probably afflict the whole country. So many of them just aren't worth going to and the good affordable stand-by places of the past have been dwindling.

All of this is happening as residential rents and condo prices are very high downtown and there is a large, growing population. On paper, you'd think the area would be thriving. It is a stagflation sort of situation.

Some areas of town have improved, like Mount Pleasant.

I would generally disagree with pretty much this whole post. There is a large influx of new businesses opening downtown, and the cycle is toward higher-end replacing lower-end. Restaurants are opening again in large numbers, with new business district openings (Social Corner, Nook, etc), Alberni St seeing a huge shift with new restaurants aimed higher end and crowding out the QSRs (there's quite an exciting one coming that can't be disclosed), then we've seen Le Crocodile relaunching, Osetra opening in the Library district, Slo coffee moving onto Granville (surprisingly). On the retail front, Robson has seen Aesop, Herschel, JD Sports, and size? added in the last few years, Arcteryx taking over the old Roots to open its flagship and pushing Roots to a new flagship, Adidas opening its first "Home of Sport" flagship in North America at Robson and Burrard, BAPE opening on Alberni, and now Nordstrom being demised and leased with the premier corner being occupied by Aritzia's flagship.

New hotels are in process, with office conversions, brand replacements (Park Hyatt taking over from Shangri-La which is a step up in luxury and bodes well), and new hotels (Listel replacement, Block by Amacon).

Most of the big holes in the downtown retail environment are rooted in failures in the rest of Canada and not due to Downtown Vancouver's retail landscape (Nordstrom Vancouver was successful, in the rest of Canada it failed, the Bay's failure is nation-wide).

I have a business downtown and part of the BIA. I would say the consensus is that Downtown is seeing major wind in its sails, and moving on pretty dramatically from the Covid days.

[someone123]

A lot of my post was facts like the Bay being closed down and remaining empty so I am not sure it makes sense to disagree with most of it.

The 2025 data isn't so great in this report: https://www.dtvan.ca/wp-content/uplo...Compressed.pdf. It seems to fit with my subjective assessment.

Granville storefront vacancies up to just under 30%, Robson up to over 10%. Overall storefront vacancy downtown rose to 14.9% in 2024 while city-wide it's 9.9%. Presumably overall retail space vacancy would be much worse since the old empty department stores are so large.

Not trying to be a Debbie Downer. Maybe there is a very recent uptick into 2026, but I don't think those big retail spaces are full yet. It's nice that there will be new hotels eventually but I was talking about retail stores right now. There will always be some new stores but in that report, last year, it looks like there was a net loss of businesses, and the average value of a retail transaction fell significantly.

There's a bunch of new construction that will happen but construction sites tend to temporarily worsen retail operations.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by csbvan

I would generally disagree with pretty much this whole post. There is a large influx of new businesses opening downtown, and the cycle is toward higher-end replacing lower-end. Restaurants are opening again in large numbers, with new business district openings (Social Corner, Nook, etc), Alberni St seeing a huge shift with new restaurants aimed higher end and crowding out the QSRs (there's quite an exciting one coming that can't be disclosed), then we've seen Le Crocodile relaunching, Osetra opening in the Library district, Slo coffee moving onto Granville (surprisingly). On the retail front, Robson has seen Aesop, Herschel, JD Sports, and size? added in the last few years, Arcteryx taking over the old Roots to open its flagship and pushing Roots to a new flagship, Adidas opening its first "Home of Sport" flagship in North America at Robson and Burrard, BAPE opening on Alberni, and now Nordstrom being demised and leased with the premier corner being occupied by Aritzia's flagship.

New hotels are in process, with office conversions, brand replacements (Park Hyatt taking over from Shangri-La which is a step up in luxury and bodes well), and new hotels (Listel replacement, Block by Amacon).

Most of the big holes in the downtown retail environment are rooted in failures in the rest of Canada and not due to Downtown Vancouver's retail landscape (Nordstrom Vancouver was successful, in the rest of Canada it failed, the Bay's failure is nation-wide).

I have a business downtown and part of the BIA. I would say the consensus is that Downtown is seeing major wind in its sails, and moving on pretty dramatically from the Covid days.

Granville and Georgia has traditionally been the heart of downtown. Those two empty spaces totally bring it down. Granville itself south of that point is a wilderness of empty storefronts. ABC satering to late night boozers isn't going to make it any more appealing.

So happy that the twee shops of Alberni that cater to offshore money are doing well. Totally symbolic of what's wrong with Vancouver.

[csbvan]

Originally Posted by someone123

A lot of my post was facts like the Bay being closed down and remaining empty so I am not sure it makes sense to disagree with most of it.

The 2025 data isn't so great in this report: https://www.dtvan.ca/wp-content/uplo...Compressed.pdf. It seems to fit with my subjective assessment.

Granville storefront vacancies up to just under 30%, Robson up to over 10%. Overall storefront vacancy downtown rose to 14.9% in 2024 while city-wide it's 9.9%. Presumably overall retail space vacancy would be much worse since the old empty department stores are so large.

Not trying to be a Debbie Downer. Maybe there is a very recent uptick into 2026, but I don't think those big retail spaces are full yet. It's nice that there will be new hotels eventually but I was talking about retail stores right now. There will always be some new stores but in that report, last year, it looks like there was a net loss of businesses, and the average value of a retail transaction fell significantly.

There's a bunch of new construction that will happen but construction sites tend to temporarily worsen retail operations.

The data is 2024, so we will see what 2025 brings. But it's relatively aligned with what has been happening. As businesses have left the key retail streets downtown, particularly Robson, the CRUs are quickly being snatched up by large international brands. These replacement tenants are more stable retail operations that are putting in extensive money for renovations.

There's not much to be done with the Bay building in the meantime, something that all Canadian cities are facing in their downtowns. But the fact that the Nordstrom space so quickly saw a proposal for reconfiguration and has leased up is a testament to the demand that remains for strategic downtown retail.

[csbvan]

Originally Posted by whatnext

Granville and Georgia has traditionally been the heart of downtown. Those two empty spaces totally bring it down. Granville itself south of that point is a wilderness of empty storefronts. ABC satering to late night boozers isn't going to make it any more appealing.

So happy that the twee shops of Alberni that cater to offshore money are doing well. Totally symbolic of what's wrong with Vancouver.

Did your brain get stuck in 2016 or something?

[SpongeG]

BAPE just opened its first Canadian store on Alberni in Vancouver.

Cult-favourite Japanese streetwear brand BAPE opens first Canadian store in downtown Vancouver
The global label’s 3,780-square-foot Alberni Street flagship opens March 6 with a Vancouver-inspired design and an exclusive capsule collection.

By Mihika Agarwal / March 5, 2026

https://bcbusiness.ca/industries/ret...ore-vancouver/

[C3YVR]

Originally Posted by csbvan

I would generally disagree with pretty much this whole post. There is a large influx of new businesses opening downtown, and the cycle is toward higher-end replacing lower-end. Restaurants are opening again in large numbers, with new business district openings (Social Corner, Nook, etc), Alberni St seeing a huge shift with new restaurants aimed higher end and crowding out the QSRs (there's quite an exciting one coming that can't be disclosed), then we've seen Le Crocodile relaunching, Osetra opening in the Library district, Slo coffee moving onto Granville (surprisingly). On the retail front, Robson has seen Aesop, Herschel, JD Sports, and size? added in the last few years, Arcteryx taking over the old Roots to open its flagship and pushing Roots to a new flagship, Adidas opening its first "Home of Sport" flagship in North America at Robson and Burrard, BAPE opening on Alberni, and now Nordstrom being demised and leased with the premier corner being occupied by Aritzia's flagship.

New hotels are in process, with office conversions, brand replacements (Park Hyatt taking over from Shangri-La which is a step up in luxury and bodes well), and new hotels (Listel replacement, Block by Amacon).

Most of the big holes in the downtown retail environment are rooted in failures in the rest of Canada and not due to Downtown Vancouver's retail landscape (Nordstrom Vancouver was successful, in the rest of Canada it failed, the Bay's failure is nation-wide).

I have a business downtown and part of the BIA. I would say the consensus is that Downtown is seeing major wind in its sails, and moving on pretty dramatically from the Covid days.

Well said.
Today's article in RI does a similar summary.

https://retail-insider.com/retail-in...lberni-street/