The Midtown shopping centre in the heart of Saskatoon has seen the opening of several new retailers in the past year or so.
Tara Faris, General Manager of the mall which is managed by Cushman & Wakefield, said Bailey Nelson opened in the fall – a first to market eye retailer for the Saskatchewan city.
“We now have Urban Kids in the centre down by The Bay,” she said. “And then we’ve got the new Suzy Shier/Le Chateau combo store in the centre. That opened last fall as well. We’ve got Aura Hair (Salon) which is expanding into Saskatchewan from Manitoba. They also opened shortly before Christmas.
“And then we have a 14,000-square-foot Dollarama and that opened at the end of October. Of course, lululemon is a full year with us now. They opened in mid December of 2021.”
Faris said there’s been some significant recovery coming out of the pandemic.
“For Midtown, we are the downtown fashion destination in this market. Lots of first to market retailers call Midtown home in terms of Aritzia, Victoria’s Secret and like. So we’ve got good foot traffic coming back to the centre coming out of the pandemic,” she said.
“Retail certainly is in recovery mode . . . Seeing the activations in the centre and seeing people come back to that pre-pandemic way of shopping. So it’s been really positive in Saskatoon.”
Faris said the Hillberg & Berk store in Midtown is expanding and relocating in the centre and is currently under construction.
“We have Pitchfork Market which is kind of a boutique local grocery store here in the city. They’re taking about 18,000 square feet. They should be starting construction here in the next couple of weeks with a late summer, early fall 2023 opening date. We’ve got the store within a store with Zellers coming inside the Hudson Bay store at about 9,000 square feet. So we’re excited to see how they put that concept together for us.
“We have Torrid coming actually and they’ll be new to market for us and they’ll be taking possession here for fixturing come April. We look to have them open for summer of 2023. That’s exciting as well.”
Faris said there remains about 18,000 square feet of available retail space.
“We are actively looking for a good first to market user for that space too,” said Faris. “In terms of overall occupancy, I’d say we’re about 96 to 97 per cent. Lots of activity, not many dark stores, and of course we’ve got a very robust popup program that incubates local tenants.”
Last fall the shopping centre launched its newest event space, The Studio at Midtown, which is a community-focused hub for people to connect, create and discover.
“The Studio has actually been a great success for us, having artisan markets, art shows. A lot of those retailers that are coming as part of those markets are actually filling our retail pipeline a little bit. Some start in The Studio and then do longer terms in inline spaces. That’s kind of a cool good news story, just cultivating those local retailers, incubating their ideas and their concepts and giving them opportunities to their concepts and get some market data from real consumers. That’s working out very well for us as well.”
Faris said sales productivity at the mall has also recovered from the pandemic.
“All positive things here in Saskatoon.”
Midtown is owned by Kingsett Capital.
Related Retail Insider Articles
- Midtown Centre in Downtown Saskatoon Launches Unique Multi-Use Activation Space [Photos/Interview]
- Saskatoon’s Midtown Plaza Adding New Tenants Amid Centre Overhaul
