The Metro Vancouver Retail Thread

[officedweller]

Usually, if there's percentage rent, the base rent would be lower.
Ummm, not in this case.

[jollyburger]

Originally Posted by officedweller

Usually, if there's percentage rent, the base rent would be lower.
Ummm, not in this case.

I mean for some space in Net Loft in 2021 they said it's either Basic Rent or Percentage Rent. Then just add the "Additional Rent" psf.

https://admin.granvilleisland.com/wp-con...et.-Granville-Island.-Lease-Brochure.pdf

[officedweller]

Originally Posted by jollyburger

I mean for some space in Net Loft in 2021 they said it's either Basic Rent or Percentage Rent. Then just add the "Additional Rent" psf.

https://admin.granvilleisland.com/wp-con...et.-Granville-Island.-Lease-Brochure.pdf

Exactly.
Usually percentage rent would be applied where the landlord wants the tenant in the mix, but its viability may be uncertain. If the tenant does well, so does the landlord.

[officedweller]

Winners opens new expanded location in downtown Vancouver
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/winners-new-location-downtown-vancouver-660-granville-street-open

Entrance on 1st floor, 2nd floor is mostly shoes, 3rd floor is clothing.


https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/winners-new-location-downtown-vancouver-660-granville-street-open


https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/winners-new-location-downtown-vancouver-660-granville-street-open


https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/winners-new-location-downtown-vancouver-660-granville-street-open


https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/winners-new-location-downtown-vancouver-660-granville-street-open


https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/winners-new-location-downtown-vancouver-660-granville-street-open

[Vin]

^^

Went there yesterday: pretty nice store with expanded shoes/luggage racks. It managed to empty my wallet, but all good cuz I found things I needed.

[SpongeG]

Foot locker taking over a few spaces for a large store at Metropolis across from Muji.

PXL_20241023_212927333 by snub_you, on Flickr


PXL_20241023_212923628 by snub_you, on Flickr

[officedweller]

Checked out the new Winners downtown on Granville.
It feels small because of the separate floors. (and smaller than when it was Steve Nash).
The Men's clothing section seems smaller because the racks aren't as long and they have more free standing racks.
They still have some housewares and home goods on the shoe floor.
The escalators must take up a lot of the additional space.
The escalators also seem to be more enclosed than usual - could be fire requirements.
Likewise, there is a parallel staircase in addition to the up and down escalators.
I don't know if that's just anticipating escalator repairs, or if it is a requirement.

PS - the Winners blade sign is edged in red neon/LED so that makes it stand out a bit.

[whatnext]

See any stuff being stolen? That location will be worse than the old for theft.

[officedweller]

No, but it was crowded.
The tag reader posts at the escalators are much more discrete

[Doodler]

Originally Posted by officedweller

Checked out the new Winners downtown on Granville.
It feels small because of the separate floors. (and smaller than when it was Steve Nash).
The Men's clothing section seems smaller because the racks aren't as long and they have more free standing racks.
They still have some housewares and home goods on the shoe floor.
The escalators must take up a lot of the additional space.
The escalators also seem to be more enclosed than usual - could be fire requirements.
Likewise, there is a parallel staircase in addition to the up and down escalators.
I don't know if that's just anticipating escalator repairs, or if it is a requirement.

PS - the Winners blade sign is edged in red neon/LED so that makes it stand out a bit.

Totally agree about this store feeling small, especially since this new store has way more columns (and they're huge). The Daily Hive article says that its 25% bigger, but here it's really the difference between overall and usable square feet. The ceilings feel low and its overlit with harsh lighting. Lots of short aisles and the space in between the racks are more narrow than before. The clothing offerings are worse than before and this store feels like crappy old Winners stores I used to go to in Toronto 25+ years ago.

Went the following day to the Cambie store and the difference was shocking. It feels like this store is now the Flagship store for Vancouver, (store design and product offerings) plus it has HomeSense as part of it

[Vin]

Originally Posted by officedweller

No, but it was crowded.
The tag reader posts at the escalators are much more discrete

Part of the reason why it felt small was because it was so crowded, especially after working hours. Went twice: first time during working time and it was relatively breezy. Different story when I went again right after work and it was crowded: way more than the old store had ever experienced. Must be a novelty thing.

[officedweller]

Yeah, the size of the men's clothing section at the new Granville store felt like the tiny Winners at Tsawwassen Mills.
I think they must make a lot on shoes, as that section seems larger, or maybe its just more prominent.

They would have donE better taking space at Telus Garden when the podium was proposed as retail.

Originally Posted by Doodler

Went the following day to the Cambie store and the difference was shocking. It feels like this store is now the Flagship store for Vancouver, (store design and product offerings) plus it has HomeSense as part of it

The Park Royal store is the best local Winners.
It's in one of the former department stores with massively high ceilings and huge square footage and huge men's clothing section.
... and it's only Winners, since there's a Homesense at the other end of Park Royal.

[RDW989]

And in the old Winners space, above BestBuy, widely anticipated but I don't think previously confirmed ... my pix,

[IMG][url=https://flic.kr/p/2qsvBYE]

[Doodler]

Originally Posted by RDW989

And in the old Winners space, above BestBuy, widely anticipated but I don't think previously confirmed ... my pix,

[IMG][url=https://flic.kr/p/2qsvBYE]

I believe Marshalls is a bit higher end than Winners. I was disappointed with the new relocated Winners store because their new product offerings looked of lesser quality than their previous store. Makes sense now if Marshalls goes higher end, in that the two brands will be more distinct from one another given their close proximity.

[officedweller]

+Given that the new Winners doesn't really feel much bigger than the old location (and may not be given dead space),
I wonder why they didn't just open the Marshalls at The Hudson location?

[s211]

Help me out here. Why hasn't Marshalls/Winners just merged and gone with a single platform? They're frankly identical.

They should go the route of Best Buy / Future Shop. Should have done so a long time ago, IMHO.

[SpongeG]

Americans often prefer Marshalls. It was a separate company for years before TJ Maxx bought it out. I find it weird that long before we had Homesense in Canada, the USA had Homegoods, and not too many years ago, they created a new store in the USA called Homesense so they both now.

The Esprit spot on Robson has no mention of Esprit at all. And speaking of Robson what are they doing down around Bute And Robson? it looks like the sidewalk will be very wide and barely any room for cars now in that section.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by s211

Help me out here. Why hasn't Marshalls/Winners just merged and gone with a single platform? They're frankly identical.

They should go the route of Best Buy / Future Shop. Should have done so a long time ago, IMHO.

The two are examples of completely opposite strategies. TJX had owned Winners in Canada for years before it launched Marshalls as an alternative store brand. It tends to have slightly more expensive/ higher end brands on sale in Canada.

Best Buy acquired Future Shop, found both brands to be struggling to be profitable and chose to close half the Future Shop locations and rebrand the other half as Best Buy.

Owning several apparently competing brands in the same market seems to work for some retailers, and not for others. Pattison Food Group, besides having Save On and Buy Low, also operate several brands in a similar niche; Urban Fare, Nester's and Choices for example have stores quite close to each other in Downtown Vancouver.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by SpongeG

what are they doing down around Bute And Robson? it looks like the sidewalk will be very wide and barely any room for cars now in that section.

It's the permanent Bute Plaza construction. That part of Robson will end up as two lanes, with a wider sidewalk, but there have been temporary planters and bollards closing the outer lanes for some time, to confirm that the permanent arrangement shouldn't create any problems.

[officedweller]

For Winners / Marshalls, I think at some point having 2 separate administrative functions for the 2 stores will cause them to merge the two.
True, that TJX brought Marshalls to Canada side-by-side with Winners, rather than being the result of a takeover, but they can always rethink the decision.

Historically, a lot of stores have eventually merged:

Hudson's Bay's take over of Simpsons
Sears decision to run eatons separately
Best Buy's takeover of Future Shop
Rona's takeover of Lowe's
SportChek's trakeover of Atmosphere (formerly Coast Mountain Sports) seems to have them co-locate

Pattison changed its PriceSmart concept from being side-by-side with Save-on-Foods to being an Asian brand, and they also eliminated a lot of their others lesser known stores - Overwaitea, Cooper's Foods (bought in 1999, merged in 2016), etc.

https://canadiangrocer.com/coopers-foods-banner-disappear-bc
https://canadiangrocer.com/overwaitea-converts-six-stores-save-banner

Then there is Chapters (large stores), Indigo (lifestyle stores) and Coles (smaller stores) which seem to co-exist but I doubt you'd see them side-by-side.