Hudson's Bay department store, Downtown Vancouver BC. Image: Bankview, Skyscraper Vancouver Forum
Vancouver’s Hudson’s Bay department store will get further interior renovations Spring 2013. The store has already spent in excess of $40 million on its current renovations (levels TopShop, G, 2, 5 and 6) and will spend more to finish its ground-floor cosmetics and jewelry departments, not to mention women’s moderates and furniture. We’ve been told that a Burberry shop is in the works for the ground floor but this isn’t 100% confirmed at press time.
Vancouver’s Hudson’s Bay store was renovated at the expense of it’s Toronto Queen Street and Downtown Montreal store. The company has a limited renovation budget and Vancouver got the lions share. A Montreal men’s floor is in the works (similar to Vancouver’s) and the Toronto Queen Street flagship should be fully renovated by the end of 2013.
Hudson’s Bay is making major changes. Keep watching this site for updates!
Current Sephora, to be replaced by Browns Shoes. Image: Quadrangle
Browns Shoes will open a 5000 square foot store at Toronto’s Eaton Centre. This will replace its current smallish 2500 square foot store. Browns will replace Sephora cosmetics, which will move to a larger space on the same floor.
Browns’ store will be on Level 3 of the Eaton Centre (as is their current store), often considered the ‘most prestigious’ floor in the mall. This may not arguable by true but Level 3 is the brightest level since it receives sunlight from the skylights above.
Browns stores are from Montreal and have stores across Canada. Their stores vary in size, reaching as large as 8000 square feet. Browns once had concessions at Holt Renfrew and Hudson’s Bay stores in Canada, as well as at Joseph’s of Chicago (a Chicago-based shoe retailer that went bankrupt). These concessions have since closed, leaving free-standing locations.
Browns is one of our favourite shoe stores, especially when they have a sale. We admit we have a shoe problem… we don’t have enough room for all of our shoes. Many readers can probably relate. We make regular trips to Browns and its ‘younger’ store, B2. Both carry private-label and designer shoes with some of the best brands available in Canada.
Browns is in expansion mode and will be opening more Canadian locations. Watch our website/Facebook/Twitter, as we’ll update you when we find more openings/expansions.
Kate Spade/Ted Baker/Tesla Motors @ Yorkdale. Image: Toronto Life
Toronto’s Yorkdale Shopping Centre opened its 145,000 square foot expansion early morning Friday November 16th. We received some excellent info and photos from retail insiders eager to give us the inside scoop. And we thank all of you who have enthusiastically responded to our invitation to become insiders! Keep the tips/photos emails coming!
We’re currently in Vancouver BC, so we were unable to attend the Yorkdale opening. We’ll defer to one of our Toronto-based correspondents…
Inside Canada’s first Kate Spade store: Image – Cynthia Cheng Mintz of DelectablyChic
Cynthia Cheng Mintz of DelectablyChic provided a fabulous article including photos and a description as follows: “It has finally landed! Right in time for the holidays, Yorkdale‘s new expansion, which has 145,000 square feet of retail space has opened its doors to the public.
Featuring Anthropologie’s third Toronto location and Ann Taylor’s second as well as first-to-market stores like Kate Spade and Ted Baker, Yorkdale continues to be the IT shopping destination in Toronto. Ann Taylor’s sister store, LOFT, has also arrived, and has taken over Mango’s old home. Media were lucky to get a preview of what the wing has to offer on November 15, as well as shop the stores the day before the official grand opening.In addition to fashion and accessories, the wing also includes places for food and drink as well as gadgets and other things.
Toronto favourite, DAVIDs Tea has a spot there, as does olive oil emporium, Ta-ze. Sit-down restaurant, JOEY Grill and Lounge has also opened a spot at the mall (and provided the much of the food for the event), making it the chain’s third location in the 416. Telsa Motors, the electric car company, also has a showroom in the wing. Yorkdale is also home to Microsoft’s first first brick-and-mortar store in Canada and rival Apple is moving into a much larger space.
LOFT by Ann Taylor. Photo – Cynthia Cheng Mintz of DelectablyChic
For those looking for devices, but aren’t sure who to sign on with or which one to get, there’s Best Buy Mobile.Yorkdale’s new expansion is located in the southwest part of the mall, with Holt Renfrew being its closest anchor. Holt Renfrew itself will be undergoing an expansion, which will, according to reports, include a huge shoe department.”
The link to Cynthia’s article is here. And Cynthia is right. Holt’s will have a huge shoe department. 10,000 square feet as we previously reported.
La Maison Simons (Image: http://www.image-architectural-illustration.com)
La Maison Simons is in talks with Oxford Properties to open a new store at Les Promenades Gatineau in Gatineau, Quebec. This mall is in suburban Ottawa. Discussions are only preliminiary and a source tells us Simons wants space between 80,000 and 100,000 square feet.
Simons originally planned to open at Cadillac Fairview’s Rideau Centre. Talks broke down after Nordstrom secured Rideau Centre space. Peter Simons, President and CEO of La Maison Simons, expressed disappointment that the deal fell through after five yeears of planning, negotiation and design of a Simons planned for an eastward Rideau Centre expansion.
Negotiations for a Simons store at Ottawa’s St. Laurent Shopping Centre have also been unsuccesful. Landlord Morguard Investments was unable to release a non-competition clause from a large-format retail competitor, thus impeding Simon’s possible St. Laurent tenancy.
Les Promenades Gatineau/Oxford Properties will be announcing a major mall expansion that will include a food-court relocation, the elimination of government offices on-site, and a substantial retail expansion that will include at least one new anchor store.
Our Toronto-based retail analyst speculates that La Maison Simons will try to secure a second Ottawa-area store after securing space in Gatineau. We will continue to keep you updated on La Maison Simon’s exciting Canada-wide expansion plans.
A Chanel Boutique will open inside of an expanded Holt Renfrew at Toronto’s Yorkdale Shopping Centre. We’ve been told that the boutique will include women’s ready-to-wear, bags/accessories, jewelry and shoes. New Prada and Gucci shops will also open inside of the newly expanded Holt’s.
We previously reported that Holt Renfrew in Toronto’s Yorkdale Shopping Centre would be expanding to over 120,000 square feet. A new second-level is currently under construction and will include a new men’s floor with its own entrance.
Photo: Adam Zendel – Nov 16 2012
Thank you, again, Adam Zendel for the photo and tip. He has an interesting twitter account and we follow him. It’s: @adamzendel. We are also posting a link to his Toronto Star blog: http://thestar.blogs.com/yourcitymycity/author-adam-zendel and his twitter: @adamzendel
We will update you on Yorkdale’s Holt Renfrew expansion as we receive more information.
Harry Rosen Doubling the Size of its Toronto Yorkdale Store
Harry Rosen will expand its current Yorkdale Shopping Centre store to almost 32,000 square feet by November 2013. This will be more than double the size of their current 15,026 square foot Yorkdale store.
It will be the second-largest Harry Rosen store in the chain after its 55,000 square foot Tororonto Bloor Street flagship, and will surpass the size of the 30,500 square foot Calgary Core store (opened Oct 2008), currently its second-largest.
Several new designers will be included at the expanded Harry’s. The Yorkdale Harry Rosen store does some of the highest per-square-foot sales in the chain, surpassing those of its flagship Toronto Bloor Street store.
Harry Rosen will spend about $100million adding about 150,000 square feet to its current 16-store chain by 2017. It is in expansion mode to compete with competitors Holt Renfrew and soon-to-arrive Nordstrom.
Harry Rosen Yorkdale. Image: http://explorecanadalikealocal.com
We’ll update you when we get more details. In the mean time, if you’re in Toronto, check out the 145,000 square foot Yorkdale mall expansion that we previously reported.
We just got a new email address. Got any retail insider info? Please feel free to send it our way: insider@retail-insider.com
Hudson's Bay Yorkdale, jewelry dept. Image: Adam Zendel
Canada’s Hudson’s Bay stores are renovating with a ‘new look’. Substantial renovations have been underway at its Vancouver and Toronoto stores. Both flagships are still incomplete, while some interesting upgrades have been made to its Yorkdale Shopping Centre store in suburban Toronto.
Check out the store’s new jewelry department, image above. The look is clean, modern and elegant. Expect similar jewelry departments at Hudson’s Bay stores across Canada in the next couple of years.
We have been told that the new-build Oakridge Shopping Centre Hudson’s Bay store (in Vancouver BC) will adopt a similar look, while the Vancouver and Toronto flagship stores will see similar jewelry department designs for Spring/Summer 2013. We recently posted an article about the Oakridge expansion, including an entirely newly-built Hudson’s Bay store.
The image below shows an upgraded shoe salon and women’s contemporary clothing area. Again, a clean and modern look is highlighted with upgraded lighting and ceiling treatments.
Hudson’s Bay Yorkdale, women’s contemporary/shoes. Image: Adam Zendel
The photo below shows an upgraded women’s contemporary designer floor. The ceilings are smooth and modern, and we have been told that they will eventually upgrade all floor tiles from what you see currently at the forefront of this image.
Hudson’s Bay Yorkdale, women’s contemporary. Image: Adam Zendel
The three photos we used were taken by Adam Zendel. He has an interesting twitter account and we follow him. It’s: @adamzendel. We are also posting a link to his Toronto Star blog, below
We will continue watching Hudson’s Bay’s design strategy with interest. Hudson’s Bay’s interiors appear to be more modern than those seen at Nordstrom.
On Friday, November 16th, the 145,000 square foot addition to Torotno’s Yorkdale Shopping Centre opens to the public. It reportedly cost $185 millon to build and will house first-in-Canada stores for Kate Spade, Ted Baker, Tesla Motors, Ann Taylor Loft and The Microsoft Store.
Holt Renfrew will also be expanded, as we previously reported. It will be one of Holt’s largest stores at about 120,000 square feet. The Holt’s expansion will open early 2013.
“The line will open at 2 p.m. for an opportunity to play Xbox Kinect with Wayne Gretzky at 6 p.m. at the Microsoft store (details at Microsoft’s Facebook page). The first 200 customers in line for the store, which opens at 9:15 a.m., will also receive two wristbands to attend the Microsoft concert, featuring the band Train, on Nov. 17 at 5 p.m. on the Yorkdale upper level parking deck, and will meet the band. The next 1,500 in line will get tickets to the show.”
Yorkdale Shopping Centre (Image: JPRA Architects)
NHL hockey legend Johnny Bower will meet customers at the Scotiabank Branch from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Maple Leafs goalie James Reimer will be in attendance from 6 to 8 p.m.”
Other new retailers opening Friday include: Rolex @ Raffi Jewelers, Anthropologie, Best Buy Mobile, David’s Tea, JOEY Yorkdale Grill & Lounge, L’Occitane, Papyrus, Ta-ze, and Wilfred Boutique. Stores already in Yorkdale that will be moving into the new space include Apple, Bell, Bluenotes, Champs, Club Monaco, Hugo Boss, Lacoste, Lululemon, Mappins Jewelers, Scotiabank, Starbucks and TELUS.
Yorkdale Shopping Centre (Image: Oxford Properties)
Yorkdale has seen some significantly upscale new tenants join its retail roster, including Cartier, Burberry and Tiffany & Co.. We can expect more upscale tenant announcements in the coming months.
TopShop/TopMan Granville Street entrance, Hudson's Bay store, Vancouver BC. Image: Hudson's Bay
A retail analyst informs us that Vancouver’s 33,000 square foot TopShop/TopMan store is expected to ring-in $25-30million in its first year of business. The store is located on the basement level of Vancouver’s Downtown Hudson’s Bay store, and it includes its own dedicated Granville Street entrance.
Hudson’s Bay has opened TopShop stores at its Yorkdale Shopping Centre (15,000 sq ft) and flagship Queen Street W. store (19,000 sq ft). The Yorkdale store pulled-in about $11million during its first 12-months of operation.
TopShop/TopMan had an opening party on October 17th 2012 including a performance by Canadian rock indie group Metric. The party cost about $990,000 and of that, $300,000 was paid to Metric for their rather brief performance. Money well spent?
Today we got word that a “unique and upscale” 500,000 square foot shopping centre is planned for the site currently occupied by Toronto’s Globe & Mail (newspaper) headquarters. The project would also include residential and office components, as well as a smaller hotel.
As we reported earlier, The Toronto Eaton Centre’s non-anchor square footage is 582,000 square feet (excluding Sears, Canadian Tire and Best Buy).
Toronto’s Globe & Mail will move into a newly-built building at the corner of Front Street West and Spadina Avenue. This will leave a large site to be redeveloped as described above.
We have been told that the developer will court a variety of retailers, both local and international. It will be targeted as being ‘upscale’, though we have been provided few details about possible retailers at this time.We received this information from a broker involved in a deal where Riocan Trust and Allied Properties REIT are finalizing a deal to purchase the current Globe & Mail site, shown on the map above. Once finalized, a development proposal will be presented to Toronto City Hall.
This is the second recently-announced shopping centre for Downtown Toronto. Earlier we reported on the proposed Oxford Place near Toronto’s CN Tower.
Keep watching Retail Insider for updates. We’ve got the inside scoop on this exciting development!
