According to mall management, Saks Fifth Avenue will replace the Sears store at Toronto’s Sherway Gardens. Saks will occupy over half of Sherway’s 225,000 square foot Sears store location which Sears sold back to landlord Cadillac Fairview in October. Saks is expected to open in the spring of 2016, about one year before the Sherway Nordstrom store which will now open in the spring of 2017.
We’ve been told by a source at Cadillac Fairview that Sherway’s Saks Fifth Avenue will be about 132,000 square feet, even larger than Holt Renfrew’s recently announced store at Mississauga’s Square One. The same source tells us that Saks at Sherway will feature a 25,000 square foot ‘food hall’, differentiating it from Holt Renfrew as well as from American Saks stores.
We had initially speculated that Saks would to open shops-in-store within existing suburban Hudson’s Bay stores, and this is obviously not the case now for all Canadian Saks stores. In December we noted that the entire 225,000 square foot Sears might be a bit too large for Saks at Sherway, especially as only two American Saks locations are larger than 225,000 square feet, and both are ‘urban’ flagships, being the Manhattan (646,000 square feet) and Beverly Hills (275,000 square feet) stores.
Sherway Gardens is one of Canada’s most productive malls, enjoying per-square-foot sales of almost $900/year according to its landlord. Hudson’s Bay anchors the opposite end of the mall from Sears. Other anchors include Holt Renfrew (which is possibly staying at Sherway and expanding) and, in 2017, a Nordstrom store which will be one of two Toronto locations.
Sears will be vacating its Sherway location by February 28th, 2014. Hudson’s Bay Company CEO Richard Baker previously discussed opening Saks at Toronto’s Yorkdale Shopping Centre, as well. We’ll update you when we hear more on this and other possible Canadian Saks Fifth Avenue stores.
Top Image – adapted from a Sherway Gardens rendering provided by Cadillac Fairview
