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LIST OF CANADIAN TARGET STORES OPENING TUESDAY MAY 7TH

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Retail Insider
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Photo: Target

Target opens 22 Western Canadian stores on Tuesday May 7th. Two more will open a week later on May 14th. The 22 stores include 10 in Alberta, 9 in British Columbia and 3 in Manitoba.

Here is the list of Target stores opening Tuesday:

ALBERTA

Edmonton Metro:

  • Bonnie Doon Shopping Centre (Edmonton)
  • Mill Woods Town Centre (Edmonton)
  • West Edmonton Mall (Edmonton)
  • Sherwood Park Mall (Sherwood Park)
  • St. Albert Centre (St. Albert)

Calgary Metro:

  • Chinook Centre (Calgary)
  • Forest Lawn Shopping Centre (Calgary)
  • Market Mall (Calgary)

Grande Prairie

  • Prairie Mall 

Red Deer

  • Bower Place

BRITISH COLUMBIA

Vancouver Area:

  • Coquitlam Centre (Coquitlam)
  • Scottsdale Mall (Delta)
  • Willowbrook Shopping Centre (Langley)

Campbell River 

  • Discovery Harbour Shopping Centre 

Cranbrook 

  • Tamarack Mall 

Kamloops

  • Sahali Centre Mall 

Nanaimo 

  • Nanaimo North Town Centre 

Vernon

  • Village Green Mall 

Victoria

  • Tillicum Centre

MANITOBA

Winnipeg: 

  • Kildonan Place Shopping Centre 
  • Southdale Centre

Brandon

  • Shoppers Mall

On Tuesday May 14th Target opens at the Shoppes at Shawnessy in Calgary and in Prince George, BC.

[Article Source]

Target Canada website: http://www.target.ca

NEW OTTAWA RIDEAU CENTRE DETAILS, INCLUDING SIMONS AND NORDSTROM

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Retail Insider
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CF Rideau Centre

We’re posting images and updates of Ottawa’s Rideau Centre. It will be Canada’s first mall to include both Nordstrom and La Maison Simons as anchor stores. Across Rideau Street and connected by second-level pedway is a 335,000 square foot Hudson’s Bay store that will be renovated and will include a TopShop concession. 

Nordstrom Rendering at CF Rideau Centre

Nordstrom will be located on the top two levels of a former Sears store and will be about 157,000 square feet. Space below Nordstrom will become a food court. 

La Maison Simons at CF Rideau Centre

La Maison Simons will be located in the North-East portion of the expanded mall on the site of a former Ogilvy department store. 

This rendering shows an H&M store at Rideau Centre. Though negotiations are underway, we’ve been told that H&M has not yet secured a lease at Rideau Centre. 

A Zara store will be located on a proposed pedestrianized Nicholas Street.

The entire project is expected to cost well in excess of $250 million and will include a condo tower, hotel and movie theatre. 

Holt Renfrew wanted space at Rideau Centre and in the late 1990’s was in talks to open in part of the former Sears space, then Eaton’s. The deal fell through and Holt’s remains in its current space at 240 Sparks Street. The main and second levels of the 240 Sparks Holt Renfrew store total 36,600 square feet, according to lease plans. 

Thank you to our Ottawa Retail Insider Geofrey Hall for directing us to this LaPresse/LeDroit article. 

[All images from LaPresse/LeDroit. Top Image modified from image provided by Nordstrom]

Rideau Centre website: http://www.rideaucentre.com

Holt Renfrew Charity Blankets + Friday Floorplans

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Retail Insider
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Armani Baby

Today Holt Renfrew launches its collaboration with Giorgio Armani to sell baby blankets. Proceeds will be going to Free the Children, a charity dedicated to bettering the lives of third-world youth. The $50 blankets will be available at all Holt Renfrew stores on the morning of Friday, May 3rd. They are expected to sell-out quickly, and the intention is to raise $100,000 for Free the Children.

Holt Renfrew has had yearly charitable collaborations with designers including last year’s collaboration with Tory Burch to sell ‘feed bags’ for her charity.

We applaud Holt Renfrew’s efforts to raise money for charity. We encourage others to do the same.

For fun, Retail Insider will do the occasional ‘Friday Floorplans’ post. In honour of Holt Renfrew’s good work, we’re posting the lease plans for the four levels of the Calgary Holt Renfrew store, courtesy of its landlord 20 Vic Management. The entire Calgary Holt Renfrew store occupies 146,887 square feet over four floors, of which the first three are retail space open to the public. 

It is Holt Renfrew’s second-largest store, surpassed only by the Toronto Bloor Street flagship which is about 185,000 square feet. 

For interior images of Calgary’s stunning Holt Renfrew store, check out this link: http://reubenkrabbe.com/wordpress/holt-renfrew-calgary

A link to the full press release for the Holt Renfrew + Armani for Feed The Children collaboration can be found here: http://www.newswire.ca/en/story/1152383/exclusively-designed-armani-baby-blanket-to-benefit-free-the-children

Next week we’re excited to be presenting plans and renderings of Ottawa’s drastically renovated and expanded Rideau Shopping Centre. It will be Canada’s first mall to include anchors Nordstrom and La Maison Simons. Thank you for reading Retail Insider. Have an excellent weekend!

Holt Renfrew website: www.HoltRenfrew.com

Feed the Children website: www.freethechildren.com

HAPPY 343rd BIRTHDAY, HUDSON’S BAY COMPANY

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Retail Insider
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Canada’s Hudson’s Bay Company (“HBC”) turns 343 years old today. The company was incorporated May 2nd, 1670. It is the oldest commercial corporation in North America. 

The company has a lengthy and significant history. In many ways HBC’s history is Canada’s history. It started as a fur trading business and at one time was the largest landowner in the world. It owned Rupert’s Land, which occupied 15% of North America’s entire landmass. 

When the fur trade declined, the company became a mercantile business for Western Canadian settlers. The first HBC sales store opened in 1857 in Fort Langley, BC. Sales stores subsequently opened in other communities. The first of the original downtown flagship stores was built in Calgary in 1913 with subsequent flagships opening in Vancouver, Victoria, Edmonton, Saskatoon and Winnipeg. 

From the 1960’s to the 1990’s, the company absorbed and re-branded several Canadian department stores, not unlike what Macy’s has done across The United States.  These included Morgan’s, Woodward’s and Simpson’s, among others. The company also purchased and opened new store chains such as Zellers and Field’s. 

The company today includes 90 Canadian department store locations under the new name and branding ‘Hudson’s Bay’. It also owns a few remaining Zellers locations, America’s Lord & Taylor department store chain, and Home Outfitters. 

We will be analysing the company’s current modernization strategy. The company is attempting to change what was considered to be a fusty store with uninteresting merchandise and poor customer service. Improvements have been made but the company has far to go. 

For more on The Hudson’s Bay Company’s history, we are providing links to some of today’s article research sources: 

http://www.hbcheritage.ca/hbcheritage/history

http://www.gov.mb.ca/chc/archives/hbca/about/hbc_history.html

http://firstpeoplesofcanada.com/fp_furtrade/fp_furtrade3.html

Mulberry Opening Second Canadian Location On Toronto’s Bloor Street

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Retail Insider
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Image: Modified Google Streetview Screenshot

*****UPDATE: Mulberry’s Bloor Street store is open as of August 6th 2013. The store is one floor and is 2,237 square feet. Thank you ACT7 of Urban Toronto for the update.*****

British luxury retailer Mulberry will open its second Toronto store at 131 Bloor Street West in Toronto. It replaces a Lacoste store in unit 103 of The Colonnade, arguably Canada’s ‘centre ice’ of luxury retail. This will also be Canada’s second Mulberry location.

We announced Canada’s first Mulberry store will open Autumn 2013 at Toronto’s Yorkdale Shopping Centre. Other Canadian locations are expected to follow.

Toronto is only the second North American city to have more than one Mulberry store, and only the fourth North Amercan city to have free-standing Mulberry shops. New York City has three Mulberry stores and a fourth in Short Hills, New Jersey (a NYC-area suburb). Mulberry also has stores in San Francisco and suburban Washington DC. Exact American Mulberry store locations are available at this link.

Image: Morguard Investments Leaseplan for The Colonnade, 131 Bloor St W Toronto

The Bloor Street Mulberry store will carry the full line of accessories as well as women’s ready-to-wear clothing and shoes. We are waiting to hear back as to whether or not the store will be two floors, taking over part of the Colonnade’s Japan Foundation Library & Museum lease. The ground floor of the former Lacoste store is 2,237 square feet, while the second floor Japan Foundation space is 2,730 square feet.

Mulberry women’s handbags are currently available in Canada at Holt Renfrew stores in Toronto (Bloor Street), Montreal, Calgary and Vancouver.

Thank you to our Toronto-based Retail Insider ACT7 of Urban Toronto for being this article’s source.

Mulberry website: www.mulberry.com

MULBERRY’S FIRST CANADIAN STORE OPENS FALL 2013

By
Retail Insider
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Lease plan: Oxford Properties

*****UPDATE: Mulberry’s Yorkdale store opened August 8th, 2013*****

In February we announced Mulberry’s first Canadian store will open at Yorkdale Shopping Centre. We have updates. The store will open some time in the Fall of 2013.  It will be in a re-configured mall space as per the lease plan above.

Mulberry will open a second Toronto location at The Colonnade, 131 Bloor Street West. This store will replace a Lacoste store and will be discussed further in the article above. 

Image adapted from Yorkdale Shopping Centre website mall floorplan

We will update readers on Mulberry’s Canada-wide store epansion.

Mulberry website: www.mulberry.com

Yorkdale Shopping Centre website: http://www.yorkdale.com

HUDSON’S BAY OUTLET STORES TO OPEN CANADA-WIDE

By
Retail Insider
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Photo: Hudson Bay Outlet

A source at Hudson’s Bay tells us the company will open Canada-wide outlet stores, not unlike Nordstrom Rack. These will operate as clearance centres for Hudson’s Bay merchandise. The first store will open in the Greater Toronto Area, to be followed by other Canadian locations. We are awaiting information on tentative opening dates and locations. 

Hudson’s Bay is renowned for its sales and we question if Hudson’s Bay will continue this in-store trend or if it will move sale merchandise to its outlet stores, not unlike Nordstrom with its Nordstrom Rack stores. It is uncertain, however, if Hudson’s Bay outlets would include merchandise purchased specifically for the outlet like Nordstrom Rack.

These Hudson’s Bay Outlet locations could be carved out of existing Hudson’s Bay stores and could possibly even replace smaller, less productive Bay locations. Former Zellers stores not taken by Target or Walmart could be utilized. This is just speculation for now. Hudson’s Bay is eventually looking to close lesser-productive store locations and clearance outlets may be a way to optimize currently under-performing store real estate. 

Nordstrom Rack is also actively searching for Canadian retail space for as many as 20 or more stores, according to Nordstrom spokesperson Colin Johnson. Executives at RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust, owners of several outlet malls, confirm Nordstrom Rack’s current search for locations. We can expect Nordstrom Rack store announcements in the near future according to our Nordstrom Insider in Seattle. 


We’ll continue to keep you updated on Hudson’s Bay Outlet news. 


Hudson’s Bay website: www.TheBay.com

MOURNING THE DEATHS OF ALMOST 400 FACTORY WORKERS IN BANGLADESH

By
Retail Insider
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We at Retail Insider are very sad to receive updates about almost 400 factory workers in Bangladesh having died in the collapse of an illegally built clothing factory. Several well-known inexpensive fashion labels used this factory, including more than one Canadian company. Instead of mentioning companies and names, we are pausing to reflect on the importance of working conditions, humanity and the proliferation of inexpensive items mass-produced in factories with limited safety standards. 

We are taking pause this Monday to reflect on this tragic loss of life. We’re hoping for a future with better factory working conditions. This author is willing to pay more for clothing and goods to prevent future workplace tragedies such as the one last week in Bangladesh. 

[Globe & Mail article update]

[CBC article update]

IS HUDSON’S BAY’S ‘MODERNIZING’ STRATEGY BEST FOR THE COMPANY?

By
Retail Insider
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WAYNE GLOWACKI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS

In the past few years Hudson’s Bay has spent a fortune renovating several of its stores. A source at Hudson’s Bay headquarters tells us the company will spend close to $200 million/year to continue store renovations. But is Hudson’s Bay’s rejuvenation strategy working, and is it the best strategy?

While we’ve been posting daily Canadian retail-related news articles, we’ve also been quietly researching and analysing department store retailers in Europe, Australia and the United States. We’ve been examining successful and less successful strategies to elevate department store revenues and customer shopping experiences. Our research has found many successful department stores are using different strategies than Hudson’s Bay. 

Hudson’s Bay has decidedly gone ‘mid-scale’ with a twist – it has introduced high-priced womenswear at two (soon to be three) of its stores and has attempted to innovate somewhat with housewares and expanded men’s designerwear.  Yet it has somewhat neglected luxury accessories and potential designer shoe concessions in an era where expensive handbags and designer shoes have become the norm. Above is a chart showing the company’s positioning goals – to be somewhat ‘unique’ and ‘mid-value’. One might consider this positioning to be somewhere between Sears and Holt Renfrew. 

In the coming weeks we will analyse Hudson’s Bay’s retailing strategies in comparison to successful worldwide department stores. We’ll also evaluate Holt Renfrew and other stores to both learn from their successes and suggest how they may improve their Canadian operations. We also welcome suggestions and comments from readers. 

Retail Insider will be starting to delve into the world of retail analysis. Thank you for reading, and have an excellent weekend. 

BROWNS SHOES CONTINUES CANADIAN EXPANSION & RINGS IN THE SPRING

By
Retail Insider
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Stunning interior of Browns' flagship Montreal store [Image Source]

Montreal-based Browns Shoes continues its Canadian expansion of free-standing stores. The most recent of these will be on Vancouver’s Robson Street, and other new locations will follow. Browns currently has 48 free-standing Canadian store locations. In the last few years the company has drastically expanded its Canadian stores after losing concessions at Holt Renfrew and Hudson’s Bay Company stores. 

Browns Shoes gained concession rights within Holt Renfrew and Hudson’s Bay Company stores in the early-to-mid 1990’s. Holt Renfrew’s entire shoe operations were run by Browns, while The Bay had Browns concessions within selected existing shoe departments. Holt Renfrew severed ties with Browns in early 2007 and Hudson’s Bay did the same in the summer of 2010. This author found both losses disappointing, but was pleased to see Browns opening several large, free-standing replacement stores. 

The Holt Renfrew and Hudson’s Bay Browns concessions allowed the company to expand nation-wide. Western Canadian cities, especially, first experienced Browns Shoes shops in department stores and, more recently, with free-standing Browns boutiques. 

Browns’ flagship, Montreal

Interestingly, Browns flirted with an international expansion in the 1990’s by opening several concessions within Chicago-area shoe chain Joseph’s of Chicago. Joseph’s, unfortunately, shuttered and Browns stores are now only in Canada. 

Browns carries both private-label and designer shoe brands. It also carries selected designer accessories, many of them from Canadian designers. It’s clear Browns is a proudly Canadian company and it has launched a spring advertising campaign with Canadian supermodel Coco Rocha and model Petra Nemcova. These stunning women showcase shoes in images near the top of this article, and directly below. 

We’ve got more Browns Shoes news coming soon. Keep checking in for updates. 

Browns Shoes website: http://www.brownsshoes.com

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