Construction of a proposed 430,000 square foot, $65 million North Vancouver shopping mall, located on aboriginal lands, could begin as early as next year.
The mall would include an enclosed element as well as possibly big-box stores. Squamish Nation, property owner, is currently examining putting housing on the site along with the proposed retail. We are awaiting development proposal documents and we will share them with readers when received.
The proposed shopping centre site is located at the north end of Vancouver’s Second-Narrows/Ironworkers Memorial Bridge. The site sees considerable vehicle traffic and the area population is expected to grow with residential proposals in areas near Capilano University to the north of the site.
The development would proceed in conjunction with developer Kingswood Capital Corporation, which owns a 50% stake in the development as part of its 99 year sublease of the roughly 30 acre Squamish lands.
The project was initially proposed in 1999 and was to break ground in 2004. The new proposal would see a modified design and the addition of residential to ‘optimize the site’s use’.
This week we’re posting some photos of the in-store art installation we mentioned last week.
Philip Beesley‘s ‘Simons Aurora’ was unveiled Wednesday, February 20th, to much acclaim. We think it looks great, and we’re posting some of the artwork’s description from Canadian Architect Magazine.
According to Canadian Architect Magazine, “Simons Aurora is a canopy of crystalline columns that uses sensory mechanisms to respond to human movement, creating a gently swelling and rippling ocean of light”.
Inspired by the aurora borealis, Simons Aurora is composed of laser-cut acrylic, mylar and custom glassware. Suspended from the ceiling of the store’s north atrium, the installation is 68 feet long, 26 feet wide, and has more than 40 electronically active columns of varying lengths. Philip Beesley’s team used a new generation of electronics that allows a highly complex, intelligent digital fabric to create responsive chain reactions of light.
“We were excited by the idea of working with the Simons family which has a longstanding reputation for creating innovative retail spaces,” said Philip Beesley. “The scale and atmosphere of the Edmonton location allowed us to envision a significant installation that would adapt to and be energized by interactions with customers.”
The installation of Simons Aurora will take eight members of Philip Beesley’s studio and a large team of local artists, designers and students 17 days to complete. The process will be captured on time-lapse video. While Philip Beesley’s works reside in many countries around the world, Simons Aurora is Beesley’s first permanent installation in Canada“.
Peter Simons, CEO of the store, was in attendance for the art installation’s unveiling. From this description in the Edmonton Journal, fun was had by those in attendance.
We’ll be checking out Edmonton’s La Maison Simons this summer when we visit. We also look forward to seeing some of West Edmonton Mall’s updates we recently reported on.
TopShop/TopMan will open in November at the Hudson’s Bay store in Calgary’s Chinook Centre. This will coincide with a complete renovation of the Hudson’s Bay store. Both are in anticipation of the opening of Nordstrom and Target stores in the same mall.
The 203,000 square foot Hudson’s Bay store will see a top-to-bottom renovation and we have been told that it will be of a similar ‘look’ to the recently renovated Yorkdale Shopping Centre Hudson’s Bay Store. We have yet to get details on the size of the TopShop/TopMan shop-in-store.
Calgary’s Chinook Centre will see two new anchor tenants in the next two years. Target will open a 115,000 square foot store in May, and Nordstrom will open a 140,000 square foot store in the Fall of 2014.
Newly renovated Hudson’s Bay store at Yorkdale Shopping Centre, Toronto. Photograph by Adam Zendel. [Image Source]
Chinook Centre recently saw a $277 million, 180,000 square foot expansion and the mall is slated for another expansion in the next couple of years. We have an insider looking to obtain plans of Chinook Centre’s next expansion.
Chinook Centre is one of North America’s most productive malls. It sees sales of almost $1,100/square foot and by 2016, it is expected to have sales of close to $1billion with non-anchor sales of about $1200/square foot. These numbers come from this Calgary Herald article.
*UPDATE: This outlet mall proposal was approved by city council and will break ground shortly – Feburary 27 2013 [Source]*
We’re updating readers on the proposed Tanger outlet mall in suburban Ottawa (Kanata). According to submitted city planning documents, the mall will include “pedestrian-oriented private streets lined with retail outlets, createing the ambience of an ourdoor pedestrian mall”.
Customers will park around the edge of the development and then walk through the streets and stores.
Plan of Ottawa’s Tanger Outlet Centre. [Image Source]
A retail analysts speculates Holt Renfrew‘s discount retail concept called hr2 will occupy a 25-30,000 square foot space in the mall. We cannot confirm that speculation at this time.
The mall is being built by American outlet company Tanger Outlet Centres, which has teamed with Ottawa firms Trinity Developments and Taggart Realty as well as real estate landlord RioCan. RioCan plans to open beteween 10 and 15 Canadian outlet malls by 2018.
A 200-room hotel and four free-standing restaurants will also be included.
The rezoning application will be before Ottawa’s planning committee on Tuesday, February 26th.
We’ll update readers on other outlet malls set to open nation-wide. Keep reading!
Queen Street Hudson's Bay entrance, next to Burberry shop-in-store.
The flagship Hudson’s Bay store at Queen & Yonge Streets in Toronto will see two substantially renovated men’s floors (one of them ‘new’) and a main-floor women’s shoe floor. The men’s offerings will be on lower and second-levels, while an expanded women’s shoe department will be re-located to the west-end of the store’s ground floor, replacing menswear/accessories.
The Queen Street store’s ‘current layout’ has menswear located mostly on the western-portion of the store’s second-level as well as part of the western-portion of the store’s ground-floor. Women’s shoes are located at the eastern-end of the second-floor. The basement includes some home furnishings and a 5,000 square foot food retail concession called ‘Foodwares Market‘.
TopMan will stay on level 2 @ Hudson’s Bay, Queen Street.
The ‘new layout’ will see things moved around a bit. Part of the store’s basement/’PATH’ level will be converted to men’s shirts/ties and the store’s ‘less-expensive’ menswear offerings, while the store’s second-floor will include an expanded selection of men’s shoes and the men’s designer departments called ‘White Space’ and ‘West End Shop’. Men’s TopMan, already located on the second-level, will remain. The 5,000 sq ft Foodwares Market in the basement will remain.
The second-floor men’s store will be renovated to look similar to the sixth-floor men’s store at Hudson’s Bay in Downtown Vancouver. We previously reported on our approval of Vancouver’s men’s floor renovation. The image below is also from the Vancouver store.
Renovated men’s floor at Hudson’s Bay in Vancouver. The Queen Street men’s second floor will adopt a similar look.
The western-portion of the store’s ground-floor will be converted to women’s shoes. A sales associate informs us the new women’s shoe floor will include expanded offerings and more designers. Ground-floor women’s shoe departments have become popular and desirable in department stores. Women’s shoes are big business and provide retailers high margins. Holt Renfrew‘s Caryn Lerner is quoted as saying “It was a dream of ours to have a shoe department on the main floor and, after years, we think we finally got it right,” with the opening of Holt Renfrew’s main-floor women’s shoe department in Calgary in 2009. [Link to Globe & Mail article here].
All three department stores in Beverly Hills include main-floor shoe departments (Barneys, Saks and Neiman Marcus), for example. Each were buzzing with activity upon a recent visit. Seattle’s flagship Nordstrom store also includes a ground-floor shoe department that does ‘gangbuster’ sales according to a source.
‘The Room’ at Hudson’s Bay Queen Street, on 3.
The 850,000 square foot Queen Street Hudson’s Bay store has been undergoing interior renovations since 2008. The store’s third-floor saw the introduction of the 21,500 sq ft women’s designer department called ‘The Room’ in October 2009. A large women’s contemporary department called ‘White Space’ followed, as well as a substantially renovated accessories department on the ground floor with Coach and Burberry boutiques. Sources tell us the entire Queen Street store will hopefully be ‘competely renovated’ in the next 12-18 months.
We will provide more details of the new men’s floors and women’s shoe floors when they become available.
De Beers will open its first Canadian store on Alberni Street in Vancouver. It will be located within ‘The Carlyle’ retail complex, currently under renovation at the south-east corner of Alberni and Thurlow Streets. De Beers will join Tory Burch and another luxury womenswear retailer (NOT Chanel) in the new retail plaza. We’ll announce the womenswear retailer once lease negotiations are finalized.
We’re waiting to hear back from De Beers head office as to the Vancouver store’s opening date. We anticipate it to be late summer/early autumn 2013.
For those unfamiliar, De Beers is a diamond company that also retails its wares in a few select cities around the world. De Beers stores are beautiful, product is pricey, and having a De Beers store is considered a prestigious addition to any retail location. De Beers currently has 10 North American locations, all in the United States. De Beers has 45 stores world-wide, 24 of which are located in Asia.
According to the De Beers website:
“For a century and more, De Beers diamonds had been set, anonymously, into the creations of master jewellers around the world; now the finest natural diamonds, both rough and polished, have a home of their own. Fusing the essential timelessness of the diamond with dynamic, contemporary yet classic designs, we are the leaders in diamond jewellery innovation in both artistry and craftsmanship. De Beers Diamond Jewellers was established in 2001 as an independently managed and operated company by LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, the world’s leading luxury goods company, and De Beers SA, the world’s premier diamond mining and marketing company.”
Retail Insider consulted with a retail analyst who speculates De Beers’ Vancouver store will cater to Asian tourists as well as Vancouver residents. The location is up the street from one of North America’s top-selling Tiffany & Co. stores, and joins a city with other luxury jewellers such as Cartier, Roberto Coin, Van Cleef & Arpels @ Birks and Frey Wille, amongst others.
Some readers might chuckle, noting ‘The Carlyle’ also includes a 12,000 square foot dollar-store tenant called ‘Dollar Tree on its Thurlow Street side. Its street entrance leads shoppers to the lower-level store via escalators. These luxury retailers will be located directly above the dollar store.
Thank you to our source Van23H of Vancouver Skyscraper Forum.
Simons West Edmonton Mall dressing rooms, viewed from above. [Image Source]
West Edmonton Mall‘s La Maison Simons department store has won Chain Store Age’s prestigious ‘International Store of the Year’ Award. Simons opened its Edmonton store October 2012 as we previously reported. The store was designed by Toronto-based figure3 and will be profiled in Chain Store Age‘s March issue along with other category winners.
Image from Canadian Interiors Magazine. [Image Source]
Simons also tied with two American stores for ‘best fitting room’ design. And pictures of Simons’ fitting rooms from our previous post show why: These fitting rooms are VERY cool (as is the image of the men’s dressing rooms below and women’s, top of this article).
Simons spends considerable sums making its store interiors beautiful, interesting and innovative. The retailer also integrates art into its stores, differentiating it from almost all Canadian retailers (and is possibly inspired by America’s Neiman Marcus, which includes an extensive in-store art collection). “We continuously challenge ourselves to build stores that go beyond the norm. We want to inspire and delight our customers, not only with our fashion, but with the surroundings, making the Simons experience unique and memorable,” says Simons CEO Peter Simons in this press release.
During a telephone interview, West Edmonton Mall Leasing Agent Oren Rubin expressed his pride and gratitude for having Simons as a mall tenant, stating that he believes Simons deserves this award. We completely agree.
Today (Wednesday, March 20th) Simons West Edmonton Mall will unveil a permanent art installation called ‘Simons Aurora’ by Canadian artist and architect Philip Beesley. It will be a canopy of “crystalline columns that uses sensory mechanisms to respond to human movement, creating a gently swelling and rippling ocean of light” according to a recent press release. We’ll locate some images and provide them when available.
Canadian ‘cheap chic’ retailer Joe Fresh will open 683 locations inside of American JC Penney stores on March 15th. A 13,000 square foot Joe Fresh ‘pop up store’ will open March 8-10 on the south-east corner of Melrose Avenue and North Crescent Heights Boulevard in Los Angeles (8074 Melrose – across from Fred Segal), carrying 35 styles including “dresses, colorful cardigans and denim, crochet shorts, twill skirts and accessories ranging from $4 to $69 retail” according to Women’s Wear Daily.
Joe Fresh was launched in 2006 by Loblaw and was created by Joe Mimran (of Club Monaco and Alfred Sung fame). The label is carried in hundreds of Loblaw-branded grocery stores as well as free-standing Joe Fresh stores across Canada and the United States.
Joe Fresh is an unusually successful Canadian-founded brand that appears to be competing head-to-head with similar ‘cheap chic’ retailers like H&M, Zara and Forever 21 among others.
The store will be about 2,500 square feet. We speculate that the store will include Mulberry’s bags and accessories, along with women’s ready-to-wear and shoes (given that these are carried in other free-standing American Mulberry stores). We are unaware of the store’s opening date and we will inform readers when we get more info on Mulberry Yorkdale’s opening.
A selection of Mulberry women’s handbags are available in Canada at Holt Renfrew in Toronto (Bloor Street), Montreal, Calgary and Vancouver.
The store will be about 2,500 square feet. We speculate that the store will include Mulberry’s bags and accessories, along with women’s ready-to-wear and shoes (given that these are carried in other free-standing American Mulberry stores). We are unaware of the store’s opening date and we will inform readers when we get more info on Mulberry Yorkdale’s opening.
A selection of Mulberry women’s handbags are available in Canada at Holt Renfrew in Toronto (Bloor Street), Montreal, Calgary and Vancouver.
Image adapted from this Oxford Properties Floorplan
Mulberry has seven North American stores in five cities: New York City (three stores), Short Hills New Jersey, San Francisco and Tyson’s Galleria in McLean, Virginia. Thank you to a dedicated reader for directing us to the UrbanToronto Forum post (by ‘ACT7’) with this information. Information was obtained via a search on the City of Toronto Building Application site.
Oxford Property‘s Square One Shopping Centre in Mississauga (Ontario) is undergoing an $84million renovation and expansion. According to its website, the mall will complete renovations to its common areas including washrooms, entrances, and a newly expanded food court. The mall will also welcome a 164,000 square foot Target store, replacing the mall’s former Zellers store.
This is a link to a Youtube video of a ‘walk-through’ of the newly renovated mall.
‘FOOD Central’.
The mall’s food court will expanded and improved with ‘signature table wear’, ‘modern new decor’ and new food retailers according to the description on this website. It will include the name ‘Food Central’. Canadian shopping centres are finding it both beneficial and profitable to include expanded food offerings, which may keep shoppers in malls for longer and even act as anchor attractions in their own right.
Square One is the latest of many newly-announced Canadian mall expansions and renovations. Landlord Oxford Properties recently completed an expansion of its Yorkdale Shopping Centre, which we previously reported. Competing landlord Cadillac Fairview is spending billions to renovate mall properties across Canada to, among other things, welcome the arrival of Nordstrom to Canada.
Rendering: Square One Shopping Centre
*** Update*** We’re posting this article after Oxford Properties released this press release. It notes Square One does sales of $775/square foot.
