St. Laurent Shopping Centre

[osirisboy]

You don't need high real estate prices to develop. You need proper zoning in place. Having cheaper land makes it more attractive to develop.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by osirisboy

You don't need high real estate prices to develop. You need proper zoning in place. Having cheaper land makes it more attractive to develop.

Developers need demand (or to convince financiers there will be demand).

[Jamaican-Phoenix]

Oh, demand will come, sure enough. There's now an LRT station adjacent to a decent shopping centre, Overbrook and Castle Heights are still fairly affordable as far as housing is concerned, and there's plenty of redevelopment and intensification opportunities on St. Laurent Blvd. and McArthur Ave.

[kevinbottawa]

I counted four stores in St. Laurent that are either closed or having closing sales after the Christmas season. They need to do something about that mall ASAP.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by kevinbottawa

I counted four stores in St. Laurent that are either closed or having closing sales after the Christmas season. They need to do something about that mall ASAP.

Which four?

[Harley613]

Originally Posted by kevinbottawa

I counted four stores in St. Laurent that are either closed or having closing sales after the Christmas season. They need to do something about that mall ASAP.

4 is great! I counted 19 in June.

[kevinbottawa]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

Which four?

The Motherhood Maternity, J Michaels and Glamour Secrets are closed. There's another one already closed near where the Payless used to be but I can't remember what was in that spot. The pretzel place near Toys R Us closed before the holidays. After that there's another one or two stores having closing sales. So make that about seven stores closed or closing.

[acottawa]

J Michaels still appears in the mall directory; might be a temporary renovation.
Motherhood Maternity is closing all their stores in Canada.
The Mr. Pretzel was there less than 2 years.
I am not sure anyone views the loss of a nail shop as a loss for any mall.

I agree the mall isn't exactly thriving, but have any otherwise-healthy national brands closed their St. Laurent location recently? It seems like a lot of chain-wide failures (Sears, Gymboree, Payless, Jubilee, Armstrong), chains that seem to be closing multiple stores (Sugar Mountain) or little franchise businesses like nail shops and pretzel stores.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by acottawa

J Michaels still appears in the mall directory; might be a temporary renovation.
Motherhood Maternity is closing all their stores in Canada.
The Mr. Pretzel was there less than 2 years.
I am not sure anyone views the loss of a nail shop as a loss for any mall.

I agree the mall isn't exactly thriving, but have any otherwise-healthy national brands closed their St. Laurent location recently? It seems like a lot of chain-wide failures (Sears, Gymboree, Payless, Jubilee, Armstrong), chains that seem to be closing multiple stores (Sugar Mountain) or little franchise businesses like nail shops and pretzel stores.

Well the two are related. Weaker malls are in trouble all over North America. It's destination or bust at this point. It's still my go to if driving but it has fallen way behind Bayshore and Rideau.

[daud]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

Well the two are related. Weaker malls are in trouble all over North America. It's destination or bust at this point. It's still my go to if driving but it has fallen way behind Bayshore and Rideau.

St Laurent benefits from being in a prime east location, next to the queensway and serviced by underground LRT. All they need to do is throw some condos, office space and attract a signature tenant to make it more of a destination.

malls are hurting, despite their convenience, but St. Laurent should be one of the malls thriving and in my opinion, any lack of success is due to lack of investment and diversified investment in the property. I'm sure something will happen there in the next 5 years.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by daud

St Laurent benefits from being in a prime east location, next to the queensway and serviced by underground LRT. All they need to do is throw some condos, office space and attract a signature tenant to make it more of a destination.

malls are hurting, despite their convenience, but St. Laurent should be one of the malls thriving and in my opinion, any lack of success is due to lack of investment and diversified investment in the property. I'm sure something will happen there in the next 5 years.

Well, the land west of the shopping centre was recently set up as a compound for overnight school bus parking, so there’s that ...

[phil235]

Originally Posted by daud

St Laurent benefits from being in a prime east location, next to the queensway and serviced by underground LRT. All they need to do is throw some condos, office space and attract a signature tenant to make it more of a destination.

malls are hurting, despite their convenience, but St. Laurent should be one of the malls thriving and in my opinion, any lack of success is due to lack of investment and diversified investment in the property. I'm sure something will happen there in the next 5 years.

According to this article, foot traffic has increased 4% since the LRT opened, which is significant.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottaw...ease-1.5408039

[lrt's friend]

The failure of department stores is a major worry for the ongoing success of indoor malls. There is not the selection of anchors that there were 20 or 30 years ago and to a degree LRT is a mixed blessing for St. Laurent. LRT brings customers but also allows customers to go to other nearby malls on the same line. With it only taking 5 to 10 minutes between St. Laurent and the Rideau Centre, it is unlikely that the same shops will set up at both locations in the future.

[OTSkyline]

I agree St-Laurent is not the AAA-class mall like Rideau or Bayshore but the number of empty stores is not very big in proportion to the entire mall and the mall is consistently busy, it's a good anchor in the East End. They did renovate the floors, lighting and food court a few years ago so it doesn't look that bad or dated either.

I think the two biggest thing they could do to revive it is;
a) Get some of the "trendier" fashion chains to set up shop there which are missing today (including Zara, H&M, Lululemon, etc)
b) Add apartments and office space towers replacing some of the sea of parking (especially on the west side) and connecting to the mall.

I know they've talked about adding office/residential there for years... so why they haven't done anything yet is beyond me. What are they waiting for?

[J.OT13]

Not sure I would place Bayshore in the same category as Rideau...

I would rank our main indoor malls as followed. There are very rough rankings, with Rideau getting a 10 for its undisputed position in Ottawa, not considering better malls outside the NCR.

Rideau Centre 10/10
Promenades de Gatineau 8/10
Bayshore 7.5/10
St-Laurent 7/10
Place d'Orleans 6.5/10
Gloucester Centre 6/10
Carlingwood 5/10
Billings Bridge 5/10

[Harley613]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Not sure I would place Bayshore in the same category as Rideau...

I would rank our main indoor malls as followed. There are very rough rankings, with Rideau getting a 10 for its undisputed position in Ottawa, not considering better malls outside the NCR.

Rideau Centre 10/10
Promenades de Gatineau 8/10
Bayshore 7.5/10
St-Laurent 7/10
Place d'Orleans 6.5/10
Gloucester Centre 6/10
Carlingwood 5/10
Billings Bridge 5/10

In my arbitrary ranking of Ottawa malls Bayshore is certainly up there with Rideau. It's a grade A+ suburban mall these days and will only get better with the food court move bringing the third floor back to life. This is my ranking:

Rideau Centre 10/10
Bayshore 9/10
Les Promenades 8/10
St. Laurent 6.5/10
Place d'Orleans 6/10
Carlingwood 5.5/10
Billings Bridge 5.5/10
Gloucester Centre 4.5/10

[Harley613]

Morguard has updated the retail GLA of St. Laurent Centre on their leasing site. It is now listed as 351,949 sq feet retail GLA. How the mighty have fallen! I love how their consumer website still calls it 'a 867,275 square foot regional shopping centre'. Large chunks of that 867,275 sq ft. are taken up by two trade colleges, a former Sears, a former Sears regional warehouse, offices, etc. The actual retail mall is now between the size of Hazeldean (218,740) and Billings Bridge (485,077).

https://morguardretailleasing.com/bu...CA#tab_fs-info

[kevinbottawa]

Originally Posted by OTSkyline

I think the two biggest thing they could do to revive it is;
a) Get some of the "trendier" fashion chains to set up shop there which are missing today (including Zara, H&M, Lululemon, etc)

There's a Browns opening soon, but I'm not sure how much that'll help. For now St. Laurent is like the Dufferin Mall of Ottawa.

[sseguin]

By comparison what is the retail square area of Place d’Orleans considering it is mainly a one floor mall now with the exceptions of The Bay and Sportchek. Dollarama is relocating to the first floor in the not to distant future.

[Harley613]

Originally Posted by sseguin

By comparison what is the retail square area of Place d’Orleans considering it is mainly a one floor mall now with the exceptions of The Bay and Sportchek. Dollarama is relocating to the first floor in the not to distant future.

I just carefully added up the brand new leasing floorplan:
http://www.primarisreit.com/system/f...pdf?1575998850


Place D'Orleans now has a retail GLA of 528,181 and that includes all of the latest changes such as the Dollarama move, the Aubanerie/Marks, the Food Court move etc.