Swedish retailer H&M is opening a 22,000 square foot store at Ottawa’s expanded Bayshore Shopping Centre in October. This will be Ottawa’s first H&M store.
The company has been seeking Ottawa store space for almost a decade. H&M’s Bayshore store will be located on the main level of the mall’s former Zellers store, which is being renovated and reconfigured. Target will occupy the third floor of that same former Zellers store.
Ottawa’s Bayshore Shopping Centre is undergoing an expansion and renovation that will see its size increased to about 915,000 square feet from a current 700,000 square feet. The entire project will cost about $200 million. 56 new stores will be added including the new Target store. The expansion should be completed some time in 2015.
UPDATE: Eileen Fisher opened this store on July 26th, 2013.
American womenswear designer Eileen Fisher will open a second Canadian location at Calgary’s Chinook Centre in August. The store will be almost 2,000 square feet and will be located on the main-level of the store’s latest expansion area.
For those unfamiliar, Eileen Fisher’s prices are in the ‘bridge‘ price range and are known for having simple, comfortable designs.
Canada’s first Eileen Fisher store opened on Vancouver’s tony South Granville shopping strip in August, 2011.
Eileen Fisher joins an increasingly upscale Chinook Centre in Calgary. We recently reported on Chinook Centre’s eventual J. Crew and TopShop/TopMan openings, as well as its two new anchor stores: Target and Nordstrom. Chinook Centre will also be announcing plans for yet another mall expansion.
Eileen Fisher is looking for retail locations in and around Toronto for future locations, according to Retail Insider ACT7 of Urban Toronto.
Information for this article came from an emailed press release.
British Footwear retailer Kurt Geiger has just signed a deal with Nordstrom. A source at Nordstrom says they expect Kurt Geiger footwear to also be sold in Canada but could not provide further details.
Kurt Geiger shops carry both private-label and designer brand footwear. Geiger’s stores could be compared to Canadian footwear retailer Browns Shoes, also an upscale footwear retailer selling both designer and private-label footwear for men and women. The private-label merchandise carried in both stores is considered to be both fashionable and desirable.
Nordstrom will only carry Kurt Geiger shoes in its existing shoe departments, rather than in Kurt Geiger shop-in-store concessions. Kurt Geiger has opened shop-in-store concessions in British department stores such as Selfridges, Harrod’s and House of Fraser, and international ones such as Printemps in France and La Rinascente in Italy.
Nordstrom will carry three Geiger labels: Kurt Geiger London, KG Kurt Geiger and Carvela.
Kurt Geiger is considered to be a London, England-based retailer despite its now being owned by US-based The Jones Group. Kurt Geiger has both free-standing footwear stores (like Canada’s Brown’s Shoes) as well as shop-in-store concessions. Kurt Geiger also has agreements to operate select Manolo Blahnik footwear boutiques.
Our same source informs us that free-standing Canadian Kurt Geiger stores could be in the works, though this would likely be years away.
Rendering of the Yorkdale Nordstrom. Image: Yorkdale Shopping Centre
This morning Toronto’s Yorkdale Shopping Centre announced an expansion along the eastern-portion of the mall that will include a new 188,000 square foot Nordstrom store. Yorkdale landlord Oxford Properties has been negotiating with Nordstrom for months after previous attempts at securing a 165,000 Yorkdale Nordstrom store stalled last summer.
The mall expansion will involve demolishing a parking structure. Replacement parking will be provided under the expansion.
Rough Floorplan showing Yorkdale’s 2012 expansion area as well as the proposed 2016 expansion including Nordstrom. We are awaiting updated lease plans from Oxford Properties.
The latest Yorkdale Shopping Centre expansion will be almost 300,000 square feet at a cost of over $330 million. The expansion and the new Nordstrom store are expected to open in the Fall of 2016. Other retailers will be announced as part of the new Yorkdale expansion. We’ll update readers as information becomes available.
Latest expansion renderings: Yorkdale Shopping Centre
Yorkdale’s Nordstrom will join a 138,000 square foot Nordstrom store scheduled to open at Toronto’s Sherway Gardens in the Fall of 2016. We can expect between three and four more announced Canadian Nordstrom locations. We expect these to be in Edmonton, Downtown Toronto and possibly Winnipeg.
We will update you with Yorkdale expansion floorplans and images when available. We will also present readers with a floor-by-floor guide of the new store being provided by a source at Nordstrom head office.
Retail Insider turns one year old today. We started in April 2012 with occasional posts of little focus and today we’re Canada’s number-one national retail reporting news source. We plan on getting bigger and better.
We would like to thank Tyler Anthony Yang for his brilliant web design and marketing efforts, and Colin Arber for recently coming on board as an editor. More writers and contributors are on the way. This author may also be ‘coming out’ on this website in the near future as well.
CORRECTION: On April 2nd we reported Steve Madden was replacing Levi’s on Vancouver’s Robson Street. That was incorrect – Montreal-based Browns Shoes confirms the space will be for a new Browns store.
Browns Shoes is opening a new Vancouver location, replacing the Levi’s store on Robson Street.
Browns’ sister store ‘B2’ already has a store at 1112 Robson Street.
For those unfamiliar, Browns Shoes is a Montreal-based footwear retailer selling both private-label and designer shoe brands. It also carries some handbags, accessories and jackets/outerwear. B2 is considered to be its slightly ‘younger’ and ‘hipper’ store/brand.
Target Canada’s official ‘grand opening’ is today, April 5th. Some target stores have been open for over a month, and the store has gotten much publicity.Â
Many media sources will report on Target’s grand opening day so we won’t go into too much detail. We find it interesting, however, that Target has chosen to distribute fliers to Canadian households. On Thursday April 4th, a 28-page flyer was distributed to some Canadian homes. A digital version of the flyer is available here. A .pdf version of the same flyer is available at this link.Â
Time will tell if Target will succeed in Canada. Excitement was met with disappointment as some shoppers discovered Target’s Canadian prices were higher than both American Target stores and some Canadian Walmart stores. Still, we expect Target will profit from its Canadian expansion.Â
Target has already opened 24 Canadian stores. We can expect about 100 more to open across the country in the coming months.Â
Have a great weekend, everyone. On Monday we’ll be celebrating Retail Insider’s one-year birthday.Â
Today off-price retailer Marshalls opens seven Canadian stores, including a 55,000 square foot Toronto flagship. Marshall’s has opened 14 Canadian stores since March 2011 and it will have 27 Canadian locations by the end of 2013. The company expects to open up to 100 Canadian stores in the next 10 years.
For those unfamiliar, Marshalls is a larger-floorplate off-price retailer selling designer-brand fashions at reduced prices. This is opposed to retailers like H&M , for example, that sell discounted products (purpose-made inexpensive items).
Image: Marshalls
Marshalls is owned by American TJX Companies which also owns Canadian retailers Winners and HomeSense . Marshalls stores differentiate themselves from Winners by, among other things, carrying over 8,000 pairs of shoes per store. Marshalls has about 750 American stores in 42 states.
The seven Marshalls stores opening today include stores at the following locations:
Toronto, Ontario: Yonge & Gerrard Streets
Hamilton, Ontario: Barton Street East
London, Ontario: Wonderland Road South at Wharncliffe
Markham, Ontario: McCowan Road at Bullock Drive
Mississauga, Ontario: Argentia Road, West of Winston Churchill
Winnipeg, Manitoba: Next to Polo Park Shopping Centre and
Vancouver, BC: Marine Drive at Ontario Street.
The Toronto store is located at the retail base of a residential condominium project called ‘Aura‘. The store is close to TJX-owned Winners, located at College Park. The store will be the first Canadian location to include ‘home decor’. Other Marshalls stores will include home decor departments starting this summer.
Marshalls Toronto store will be located at the base of the Aura Tower.
The Aura (Image: TorontoCondo)
Marshalls will experience increased competition once Nordstrom Rack begins opening Canadian stores. Nordstrom Rack is expected to open between 12 and 15 Canadian locations.
We’ll continue to update you on Marshalls’ Canadian expansion.
The label was started in London (England) in 1994 and has become a popular label available at select upscale department stores and about 65 free-standing AllSaints boutiques in Britain and the United States. The label is known for stylish men’s and women’s clothing and accessories with designs often in black, brown, white and/or gray.
