Retail Insider continues its Photo Tour series of Canadian malls to provide a glimpse into shopping centres which may be less frequented lately due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Building upon the mall profile we did for The Amazing Brentwood in December 2020, we revisited the shopping centre in June 2021 to check-in on changes happening to the mall.
To recap, Shape Properties purchased the 28-acre site and shopping centre in 2010. The landlord began redevelopment plans to create a master-planned neighbourhood which would incorporate office, residential and retail components. The plans included increasing retail space from 500,000 sq. ft. to over 1.1 million square feet.
There are two phases to the property renovation: Phase 1 being the new construction being added to the shopping center and Phase 2 being the next iteration of the current Interior Centre. Photos of the legacy Interior Centre can be found in our December 2020 tour of The Amazing Brentwood and this update will focus on the new section in the Phase 1 retail development as it is where the most significant changes are unfolding.
Tour areas for The Amazing Brentwood tour
Retail Insider thanks Emma Fyfe, General Manager at The Amazing Brentwood for showing us around the shopping centre. The main areas for the tour broke down the shopping centre into:
- Town Center Plaza (highlighted in Red): A one-acre signature plaza with a grand fountain to host community events, including concerts and celebrations. The perimeter will be lined with popular retail, restaurants and entertainment anchors, all facing the action and catching the energy. Day to night, season to season, The Plaza “will be Metro Vancouver’s signature venue for excitement and experience”.
- West Mews (highlighted in Blue): Retail and social space to the north of the Town Center Plaza.
- Brentwood Boulevard (highlighted in Orange): A beautifully landscaped, fresh air high street (opening soon to vehicular traffic but closed at the time of the tour during construction) with retail storefronts facing onto it.
- East Mews (highlighted in Green): Retail and social space to the east of the Town Center Plaza.
- Tables Food Court (highlighted in Yellow): The newly opened food court experience that connects the new sections of shopping centre to the legacy portion of the property.
Touring the “Town Center Plaza”
Ms. Fyfe was very passionate about the redevelopment. Underpinning every moment of the onsite tour was how each component connected with community. “Our goal at The Amazing Brentwood is to be the ultimate gathering place — a natural extension of our community. To us, The Amazing Brentwood is so much more than a shopping centre” said Fyfe. The Town Center Plaza exemplifies the community connection being the heart of the complex.
The Amazing Brentwood recently opened its ‘skybridge’ to the Skytrain platform to welcome visitors directly into the plaza. The foot traffic is greeted by a Bellagio-like circular fountain as they enter the one-acre plaza which offers a community experience of retail, dining and events.
The Town Center Plaza is nestled into the intersection of Lougheed Highway and Willingdon Avenue where a grand staircase welcomes visitors arriving to the shopping centre on foot.
One of the landmark structures for The Amazing Brentwood is “The Glass House” which resembles blocks stacked upon each other. Accessible from the Town Centre Plaza, “The Glass House” officially launches fall 2021 and will be a unique pop-up retail space to allow brands to showcase their product in a limited time and in an experiential fashion. The highly visible space – with a striking storefront – is planned to be a flexible, evolving space to pivot from a gallery of products, concepts and innovation to push the boundaries of retail.
The grand staircase, while eye catching, serves the purpose of addressing the natural slope of the land the shopping center was built upon. Below the plaza is the typical parking structure as well as the main tenant in this section, Sporting Life, which was announced in July 2018 and opened Nov 2019.
Touring the “West Mews”
The Town Center Plaza is flanked by two Mews – “West” and “East”. Beginning with the “West Mews”, the west building is home to the Cineplex VIP and The Rec Room which both are tentatively scheduled for a July 2021 opening depending on government COVID restrictions. Both have east and south views of Burnaby as well as overlook the Town Center Plaza.
The “Middle Building” on the lease plan contains “The Grand Lobby”. This is where access to Cineplex VIP, The Rec Room, and Evolve Strength (replacing Steve Nash) will be accessible from.
Continuing through the passage (on the left of the photo above) and passing under “The Rec Room” overpass brings visitors to the north end of the retail zone. This is where the Douglas Coupland sculpture named “Charm Bracelet” was unveiled in 2020.
The artists’ concept proposal states: “Burnaby is a mix of nature and industry and has largely been centreless until the arrival of the Amazing Brentwood. The idea of collecting themes central to Burnaby in the form of a necklace seemed like a relevant way of connecting retail culture to civic art and placemaking. Part of the Charm Bracelet experience is that of the viewer scanning it up and down to see what’s in it. No two people will have the same opinion on what ‘works,’ what doesn’t work, and what they think also ought to have been included. This in turn generates a lively discussion on the subject of what makes Burnaby Burnaby — which is what the piece is, at its core, all about.”
Keeping the “Charm Bracelet” sculpture company at the north end of the ‘middle building’ is the future home of menswear retailer SuitSupply (shown with prominent green construction signage above). After entering the Canadian market in 2014, the Dutch men’s suit retailer continued to ramp up its expansion across the country. The 6,100-square-foot and two-level flagship store is anticipated to open later in the year. Suitsupply’s main floor will span about 3,850 square feet according to lease plans, with a second level spanning nearly 2,270 square feet.
Touring the “Brentwood Boulevard”
The vehicular street between the ‘middle building’ (home to “The Grand Lobby”) and the legacy “Interior Centre” (home to the new food court, Tables) is Brentwood Boulevard.
The fresh air high street was blocked off during the tour but it was designed to be the bridge between the the retail development of Phase 1 and the current Interior Centre of the upcoming Phase 2.
Walking the ‘Brentwood Boulevard” had us passing the two athletic stores currently open – an Adidas store (opened in May 2021) and the Nike store (opened in November 2020). Construction signage for upcoming retailers included Urban Outfitters (anticipated August 2021) and JAC by Connair (anticipated).
Touring the “East Mews”
Completing the circuit to return to the “Town Center Plaza”, the other “Mews” with clothing and food retailers made up the “East Mews”.
After entering Canada with their first home collection shop in West Edmonton Mall back in June 2014, H&M Home will open to the public on June 17. As was with West Edmonton Mall, the H&M Home opening coincided with the opening of an H&M flagship with men, women and children’s apparel.
The last marquee retail store in our tour was the Sephora flagship spanning over 4,563 square feet. The grand opening happened on June 4, 2021 and it became Sephora’s 14th store in British Columbia.
Restaurants in the “East Mews” includes Ramen, Neptune Seafood, La Taqueria and Oeb Breakfast.
Touring the “Tables” Food Court
The last new construction build in Phase 1 making up the final area of our retail tour is the “Tables” food court which was added onto the exterior of the pre-existing Interior Centre (which will be part of the Phase 2 plans for the Amazing Brentwood).
The redefined food hall concept features a curated collection of casual dining offerings, like Persian restaurant Cazba, Japanese-French fusion eatery Yugo Roll & Bowl, and specialty coffee roaster Soon Coffee.
The Amazing Brentwood Master Plan
The overall plan for The Amazing Brentwood includes 11 residential towers over three phases with +6,000 homes at completion. Residential Towers ONE, TWO, and THREE are currently occupied with Tower FIVE (506 homes) being offered for sale this fall. The commercial offerings has 3.9 million square feet of commercial space.
We hope you enjoyed this update of The Amazing Brentwood in Burnaby, B.C. and are always excited to see the changes at Canadian shopping centres. Don’t forget to check out our other retail photo tours over the past few months. Thank you for taking this tour with us.
Discover More Related Retail Photo Tours From Retail Insider:
- Retail Profile: CF Market Mall in Calgary (Spring 2021)
- Retail Profile: Chinook Centre in Calgary (Spring 2021)
- Retail Profile: Southcentre Mall in Calgary (Spring 2021)
- Retail Profile: The CORE Shopping Centre in Downtown Calgary (Spring 2021)
- Retail Photo Tour: Retail at The Distillery Historic District in Toronto and What’s to Come
- Retail Photo Tour: Sainte-Catherine Street in Montreal During COVID-19
- Retail Photo Tour: McArthurGlen Designer Outlet Vancouver (February 20201)
- Photo Tour: The Ever-Changing Sherwood Park Mall in Sherwood Park, Alberta (February 2021)
- Photo Tour: Big Changes and New Retailers at Avalon Mall in St. John’s, Newfoundland (January 2021)
- Photo Tour: West Edmonton Mall Phase 1 and Phase 2 During COVID-19 (December 2020)
- Photo Tour: West Edmonton Mall Phase 3 and Phase 4 During COVID-19 (December 2020)
- Photo Tour: Guildford Town Centre in Surrey During COVID-19 (December 2020)
- Metropolis at Metrotown Photo Tour (December 2020)
- The Amazing Brentwood Photo Tour (December 2020)
- Yorkville Photo Tour (November 2020)
- Bloor Photo Tour (December 2020)
- The PATH Holiday Photo Tour (December 2020)
This is like a sneak peak before I visit after the pandemic.
Very commendable perspectives it really is amazing. Hope all commercial stores can cope up during this pandemic