Canadian Retail Thread

[manny_santos]

Originally Posted by Djeffery

Part of that decision might be whether they own or lease at Masonville. They own their White Oaks store and I doubt they would easily sell it. Plus it's a much nicer store than the Masonville one is. I think at Masonville, they just took the Eaton's sign down, put The Bay sign up and did next to nothing with the place.

Interesting, I wasn’t aware they owned that store. I haven’t been in there in almost 20 years. You’re right about Masonville, in fact the store has barely changed from when Eaton’s was last there in 1999. I had just been in there in October 2019.

Their old store at Galleria (now Central Library and CBC London) was a very nice store, and it was on three levels. It didn’t exist all that long, only from 1989-2000.

[manny_santos]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

Nordstroms Rideau Centre has been pretty much a ghost town anytime I've gone in. I suspect it's not long for this world.

That surprises me, given the high average household income in Ottawa. I’ve been to Nordstrom in both Toronto’s Eaton Centre and the Pacific Centre in Vancouver, and both have always been very busy.

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by manny_santos

That surprises me, given the high average household income in Ottawa. I’ve been to Nordstrom in both Toronto’s Eaton Centre and the Pacific Centre in Vancouver, and both have always been very busy.

Ottawa is a government town so while the average income is high, there isn’t a ton of *wealth* per se. less extremes, and the extremes are what Nordstrom needs to make money. Ottawa is full of upper middle class people, but those aren’t the kinds that regularly drop thousands on designer clothes brands.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by manny_santos

That surprises me, given the high average household income in Ottawa. I’ve been to Nordstrom in both Toronto’s Eaton Centre and the Pacific Centre in Vancouver, and both have always been very busy.

High average income means shit all. Nordstrom probably needs customers who make $200k individually or family incomes over $300k. Far fewer of those people in Ottawa.

Also Simons is now there in the Rideau centre. Between them and the Bay, there's plenty to cater to the upper middle class with starter six figure incomes.

[Djeffery]

Originally Posted by manny_santos

Interesting, I wasn’t aware they owned that store.

Yep, that store through it's various ownership changes back to when it was Savette, pre-dates the rest of the mall entirely. It became a Simpsons after Savette went out of business, and then changed over to The Bay.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

Ottawa is a government town so while the average income is high, there isn’t a ton of *wealth* per se. less extremes, and the extremes are what Nordstrom needs to make money. Ottawa is full of upper middle class people, but those aren’t the kinds that regularly drop thousands on designer clothes brands.

Certainly not in Ottawa ....

[p_xavier]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

Certainly not in Ottawa ....

I remember my first job in Ottawa at Environment Canada. A director told me what are you doing in jeans and a T-Shirt, I had replied, I'm sure my pair of jeans cost more than your 70s-looking suit. He was so pissed.

Fashion is not about money, but damn do Ottawans have no sense of style.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by p_xavier

I remember my first job in Ottawa at Environment Canada. A director told me what are you doing in jeans and a T-Shirt, I had replied, I'm sure my pair of jeans cost more than your 70s-looking suit. He was so pissed.

Fashion is not about money, but damn do Ottawans have no sense of style.

That's not it, really. They simply do not care.

[kwoldtimer]

Nando's is closing 21 of their 48 locations in Ontario, B.C., and Alberta.

https://www.narcity.com/eat-drink/ca...-while-you-can

[SaskScraper]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

...What will ultimately become of the historic HBC buildings is the question. We've seen successufull repurposings of the historic buildings in Victoria and Edmonton (in both cities, HBC abandoned their old stand-alone locations for newer downtown malls). It will be harder to do with massive stores like Vancouver, Toronto and Winnipeg if/when the time comes.

That's exactly what happened to The Hudson Bay store in downtown Saskatoon. A new store was built in 1960 on the same site as Saskatoon's C.F. Cairn's department store that was taken over by The Hudson Bay Company in 1922.



The Hudson Bay stayed at its stand alone location with exterior abstract art until The Bay took Eaton's spot at Midtown Plaza a few blocks away in the early 2000s.

The vacant building's 5 floors plus basement had high enough ceilings to renovated into 4 floors of two storey lofts including an award winning internal glassroof atrium & mezzanine and main floor street level commercial, including a spa & FIAT car studio.

[Djeffery]

What used to be across the road where the walkway went? I could roll the clock back on Google Earth and still see the building there with the walkway that's now a parking lot. Was it a mall there?

[SaskScraper]

The walkway from The Hudson Bay store went to a parkade.
There was a two level shopping mall directly behind the department store called BaySide, but has since been turned into office space including a law firm, telecommunications research, government offices.

[ssiguy]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

Nordstroms Rideau Centre has been pretty much a ghost town anytime I've gone in. I suspect it's not long for this world. Ottawa could well see all three of its core department stores close (at least I wouldn't be surprised if it happened).

Downtown department stores {DDS} simply can't compete with the lower prices, easier to get to, and acres of free park that they can get in the burbs and I think all the DDS will close save Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, and probably Ottawa. That said, a city with no DDS can be the BEST thing that happens to them. London had both a large Eatons and Simpsons which turned into The Bay and then both died. London went from an incredibly vibrant downtown in the 70s to a dead zone in the 90s and was just a strip of video arcades, pawn shops, parking lots, dollar stores, and a huge empty downtown mall.......it was dreadful.

Luckily, the city decided to completely reexamine what they wanted their downtown to be and set about doing it. They knew they couldn't compete with the malls/big box so why bother trying? They focused on making the downtown a completely unique shopping and entertainment centre. They built a new Covenant Garden Market which does NOT accept any chain stores, moved its arena from the burbs to right downtown, offered tax credits to rejuevenate the original store fronts, has NOT been courting chain stores but rather discouraging them, , got Fanshawe to open a downtown campus, moved the Central Library to the empty mall to fill up the vacant space, promoted downtown living, and very recently completely overhauled Dundas & Talbot to "flex" streets which got rid of the loud,, noxious buses on those 2 key streets.

The result has been a downtown busier than it has been in decades, a soaring downtown population, and a dizzying rate of infill getting rid of those parking lots. The best thing?..................they don't have to worry about more big box stores, big malls, and even Amazon because none of those shopping/rest/entertainment options compete with what the downtown has. In other words they have created a totally niche environment and getting rid of the department stores was the first {although very painful} step towards the downtown's revival.

[Djeffery]

Dundas St London still sucks, but it's a nice brick road instead of asphalt. Most of the stores are boarded up during the pandemic and I bet half of them stay that way after. Richmond Row is a cool space when Western is in session, or a warm sunny weekend afternoon. I go to a yearly Christmas pub crawl and we start at Oxford and don't go south of about Joe Kools. Maybe the downtown should hire you to be their spin doctor, because you seem to have a higher opinion of the place than we do here.

It's funny though, Galleria was always considered the death knell for downtown, not the department stores. Eatons and Simpsons were part of what made downtown great prior to 1989 when Galleria opened. Simpsons (the Bay) closing at Dundas and Richmond was the worse thing to happen. If it had stayed there even for the next 10 years until it moved to Masonville, downtown would have been a lot better off.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by SaskScraper

That's exactly what happened to The Hudson Bay store in downtown Saskatoon. A new store was built in 1960 on the same site as Saskatoon's C.F. Cairn's department store that was taken over by The Hudson Bay Company in 1922.



The Hudson Bay stayed at its stand alone location with exterior abstract art until The Bay took Eaton's spot at Midtown Plaza a few blocks away in the early 2000s.

The vacant building's 5 floors plus basement had high enough ceilings to renovated into 4 floors of two storey lofts including an award winning internal glassroof atrium & mezzanine and main floor street level commercial, including a spa & FIAT car studio.

That's pretty cool. The building actually looks better now, with the one nice feature (the corner art walls) preserved.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

I also thought that Simons was doing well (after a slow start), but the recent article in the G&M about Simons indicated that it was an "underperforming" location.

I have heard Peter Simons in the Quebec media recently saying that the COVID crisis has been really, really tough on his chain.

More specifically (and pre-COVID) I've rarely been to the Simons at Ottawa Rideau, but the one at Promenades Gatineau that I go to more often seems quite busy. Or at least *seemed* busy before March 13.

[YOWflier]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

Nordstroms Rideau Centre has been pretty much a ghost town anytime I've gone in. I suspect it's not long for this world. Ottawa could well see all three of its core department stores close (at least I wouldn't be surprised if it happened).

Haven't you been predicting its demise basically since it opened? And yet ...

I routinely shop there and my observations are opposite yours. Nordstrom also has a lot of personal/private shopping clients (my neighbour is staff there and does a lot of this). They also have the Rack location at Train Yards to offer another point of sale at lowered price point for inventory rotated out of the main store.

A lot of people seem to have this impression of Nordstrom being an exclusively high end retailer catering only to uber wealthy, which isn't totally true. They indeed offer a lot at the higher end but also have a ton on offer that is accessible to a broader mass.

All bets are off post COVID ... but that's true for most retail.

[kwoldtimer]

Reitmans (576 stores across Canada under the banners Reitmans, Penningtons, RW & Co., Addition Elle and Thyme Maternity) is seeking creditor protection. One could see many of their stores closing under a restructuring.

Btw, am I correct in thinking that most people pronounce Reitmans as "REET-mans"? Growing up in K-W, it was always "RIGHT-mans".

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

Reitmans (576 stores across Canada under the banners Reitmans, Penningtons, RW & Co., Addition Elle and Thyme Maternity) is seeking creditor protection. One could see many of their stores closing under a restructuring.

Btw, am I correct in thinking that most people pronounce Reitmans as "REET-mans"? Growing up in K-W, it was always "RIGHT-mans".

Always called it "Reet-mans".

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by ac888yow

Haven't you been predicting its demise basically since it opened? And yet ...

I routinely shop there and my observations are opposite yours.

Agreed with this point. Nordstrom was always busy pre-COVID any time I went. We shouldn't assume government employees are the only people with money in Ottawa.