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MONTREAL’S PLACE VILLE MARIE TO SEE $100 MILLION RENOVATION

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Retail Insider
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Image: Ivanhoe Cambridge [Image link]

Downtown Montreal’s iconic Place Ville Marie will see a $100 million renovation, including substantial improvements to its retail component. Its landlord, Ivanhoe Cambridge, plans to make more investments in its other downtown Montreal retail properties as well.

Ivanhoe Cambridge purchased Alberta Investment Management Corp.’s 50% share in Place Ville Marie as part of a transaction valued at more than $400 million. More details are provided in this press release.

Place Ville Marie includes 186,151 square feet of retail space. It was built in 1962 and was last renovated in 2006. It has about 75 tenants and is part of Montreal’s vast “Underground City“.

Place Ville Marie’s current retail plan

Ivanhoe Cambridge is expected to further renovate its downtown Montreal real estate holdings including Complex Les Ailes, Place Montreal Trust and the Montreal Eaton Centre. These announcements will likely come in September or October, according to a source at Ivanhoe Cambridge.

Holt Renfrew, Place Ville Marie, 1976. [Image Source]

Interestingly, Holt Renfrew once had two smaller locations within Montreal’s Place Ville Marie (see image above). One was for women and the other for men. 

[Ivanhoe Cambridge website]

[Place Ville Marie website]

JAMIE OLIVER TO BE SPOKESPERSON FOR SOBEYS

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Retail Insider
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Photo: Jamie Oliver

Popular chef and media personality Jamie Oliver will become a spokesperson for Sobeys grocery stores. He will promote healthy food choices for Canadians, and collaboration will begin formally this fall.

For those unfamiliar, Jamie Oliver is a British chef, restauranteur and media personality. He is known for his culinary TV shows as well as his cookbooks. He has become an advocate for healthy food choices and was previously the public face of British grocery chain Sainsbury’s.

Sainsbury’s reportedly paid Oliver about £1.2 million/year to be its spokesperson, which ended in 2011. 

Making Oliver a spokesperson for Sobeys is a smart move with increased grocery competition in Canada. Walmart and Target are both expanding their Canadian food offerings. Sobeys itself recently bought Canada Safeway for $5.8 billion. Adding Oliver as a spokesperson will benefit Sobeys, especially with the proposed Canadian expansion and increased popularity of competing health-focused Whole Foods.

[Jamie Oliver Wikipedia link]

[Sobeys website]

ROOTS IS 40 YEARS OLD TODAY – AND IT’S CLOSING ITS TORONTO FLAGSHIP ON BLOOR

By
Retail Insider
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100 Bloor Street West, Toronto. Photo is a screenshot from Google Streetview.

Today, Toronto-based Roots turns 40 years old. Interestingly, it just opened its 100th store in Asia. It will celebrate its birthday in its flagship Toronto store, which it will eventually close.

For those unfamiliar, Roots is a “lifestyle brand” known for its leathergoods, athletic apparel and natural fiber clothing. It has 125 stores in Canada and the United States, as well as stores in Asia. It has furnished Canadian Olympic athletes.

The Toronto flagship store (100 Bloor Street West) will include an exhibit of the history of Roots. The original “negative heel shoe“, with which the brand got started, will be launched again and sold nation-wide. A leather jacket made in collaboration with Smythe will be sold. Also, a commemorative coffee table book called Roots: 40 Years of Style will be launched.

At the same time, the 15,000 square foot flagship Roots store at 100 Bloor will be closing, with a 1,700 square foot replacement store set to open up the street. The landlord has raised rents at 100 Bloor, making the future of neighbouring retailers uncertain. We’re not sure if Roots will open a new flagship in the Yorkville area, though rumour has it Roots could open in a renovated Hazelton Lanes.

[Source: Press Release]

[Roots website]

METRO TO CLOSE/CONVERT 15 ONTARIO LOCATIONS, AND IT WILL OPERATE TARGET’S QUEBEC PHARMACIES

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Retail Insider
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Photo: Metro

Montreal-based Metro Inc. will close and re-brand some of its Ontario grocery stores. It will also operate the in-store pharmacies at Quebec’s Target locations.

Metro announced that it will either close or re-brand 15 of its Ontario stores to the Food Basics label. We have yet to learn which Ontario locations will be affected. 

As mentioned above, Metro will operate Target’s pharmacies in Quebec. This will increase Metro’s pharmacy footprint by about 13.5%. Eric La Fleche, CEO of Metro says: 

“The agreement with Target provides an excellent growth opportunity for METRO’s pharmaceutical division, particularly for the Brunet banner, as it enables us to significantly increase our presence, our purchasing power and our sales potential in Quebec. In all, 18 new pharmacies, including 12 in the Greater Montreal area, will be set up by the summer of 2014, bringing the total of Brunet to 168.”

For more details on this story, a more comprehensive article was done by The Globe & Mail. A press release on Metro’s Target pharmacies in Quebec can be found here.

[Metro Inc. website]

SAKS FIFTH AVENUE TO OPEN IN MONTREAL

By
Retail Insider
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HUDSON'S BAY, DOWNTOWN MONTREAL. PHOTO COURTESY OF CYNTHIA CHENG MINTZ OF DELECTABLYCHIC! (WWW.DELECTABLYCHIC.COM)

Saks Fifth Avenue will open in Montreal according to Freda Colbourne, spokesperson with The Hudson’s Bay Company. It would be most likely within Montreal’s downtown Hudson’s Bay store, though there is the remote possibility of a smaller Saks space within an existing Bay store at Le Carrefour Laval.

Saks is expected to open between five and seven Canadian store locations, likely within existing Hudson’s Bay real estate. 

Montreal is affluent enough to support a Saks store. The city has a substantial number of high-earning households as well as high net-worth households. The Globe & Mail provides data showing Montreal as having the second-highest number of households earning over $200,000 in Canada (we won’t mention Quebec’s high income taxes). At the same time, Montreal lacks many of the free-standing luxury stores found in Toronto and Vancouver. Some of these luxury boutiques (e.g. Cartier, Gucci, Burberry, Versace, Salvator Ferragamo) could be located within a new Montreal Saks store.

Saks Fifth Avenue: Downtown Montreal

Locating Saks within the downtown Montreal Hudson’s Bay store makes sense. HBC owns the building outright, meaning there would be no rent for Saks. The downtown Montreal Hudson’s Bay store is the third-largest in the chain. It’s about 655,000 square feet, smaller than the Toronto Queen Street and Winnipeg flagships, and slightly larger than the downtown Vancouver store. Montreal’s flagship Bay could integrate Saks into existing square footage either by utilizing one or more retail floors, or it could occupy parts of several floors or even include smaller “Saks departments” throughout the Bay building. 

The downtown Montreal Hudson’s Bay store is geographically removed from luxury department stores Holt Renfrew and Ogilvy. Hudson’s Bay is 800 metres (or about half a mile) from Ogilvy, and a further 350 metres away from Holt Renfrew. This separation could be beneficial for a Saks store within Hudson’s Bay if it is considered far enough from Ogilvy and Holt’s to secure such concessions as Louis Vuitton (located within Ogilvy) or the likes of Gucci and Prada (located within Holt Renfrew), among others.

Saks Fifth Avenue: Le Carrefour Laval

There is the slight chance that some sort of smaller Saks shop-in-store could open within Hudson’s Bay’s Carrefour Laval location. Hudson’s Bay’s Carrefour Laval store has a favourable long-term ground lease. It is 185,588 square feet according to landlord Cadillac Fairview. Given that Saks would likely occupy 75,000-140,000 square feet for a free-standing store, it would be more likely that a smaller Saks could be integrated into the Laval Hudson’s Bay store. This is total speculation on our part and in our opinion, we think integrating small Saks spaces within Hudson’s Bay stores would be a bad idea.

Downtown Montreal’s Hudson’s Bay store is scheduled to open the luxury womenswear department ‘The Room‘ in 2014. The roughly 20,000 square foot salon’s future is in question, though, if Saks locates within in the Montreal flagship. 

TUMI STORE (CANADA’S FIRST?) OPENING AT YORKDALE SHOPPING CENTRE

By
Retail Insider
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Image: Tumi

Tumi will open its first free-standing Toronto store at the Yorkdale Shopping Centre. The store will be almost 1,300 square feet and will be located between Birks jewelers and Thomas Sabo. We expect the store will open some time in September.

It could technically be Canada’s first Tumi store, as the one we reported on in Vancouver will be a combined Tumi and Rimowa retailer.

For those unfamiliar, Tumi is a New Jersey-based manufacturer, wholesaler and retailer of travel bags and accessories. It has more recently branched into the lucrative handbag retail market. Tumi has over 120 stores worldwide and over 200 shop-in-store locations.

Tumi products are also available at various Canadian retailers including Betty Hemmings, Harry Rosen, Holt Renfrew and Taschen! stores.

Thank you to our source for this article, ACT7 of Urban Toronto. ACT7 first alerted us to Tumi’s Toronto store in May, and just learned of its exact location.

SEARS WEBSITE SELLS $32,000 ROLEX WATCHES AND CHANEL BOOTS

By
Craig Patterson
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SEARS WEBSITE SELLS $32,000 ROLEX WATCHES AND CHANEL BOOTS

Sears‘ American website is selling a $32,000 Rolex watch and a pair of Chanel boots marked down to ‘only’ $897. It’s an interesting strategy for Sears, as the retailer struggles to maintain customer interest. 

Items are listed on the website’s ‘Marketplace’. It should be noted, however, that these items are sold by third-party vendors who pay Sears a commission of up to 20% on items sold, plus a $40 per month fee. These items are not technically in Sears’ own inventory.

Some shoppers might question if these items are real or counterfeit. If we were in the market for Rolex or Chanel, we’re not sure if we’d buy it online from Sears. 

SEARS WEBSITE SELLS $32,000 ROLEX WATCHES AND CHANEL BOOTS

Nevertheless, the appearance of Rolex and Chanel products on Sears’ website is a far cry from what’s actually in store. We’re not sure if this marketing tactic is smart or misguided, and we’d hope Sears doesn’t let anything ‘slip by’ like, say, pornographic material or something else potentially controversial.

Our source for this article is this Wall Street Journal article.

[Sears website]

‘URBAN-SIZED’ GROCERY STORE OPENS IN CENTRAL MONTREAL

By
Craig Patterson
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Le Seville, site of the 14,000 sq ft Marché Adnois

Grocery retailer Marché Adonis has opened a urban-sized store in downtown Montreal. It’s a model that may be copied for future locations as the grocer seeks space in urban centres. It could open a second Montreal store in the coming months, and it may expand further into Toronto and beyond.

For those unfamiliar, Marché Adonis is a Mediterranean-inspired grocery retailer with six locations in the Montreal area as well as one in Mississauga, Ontario. Most locations are in the 30,000-40,000 square foot range. It was bought by Metro in late 2011, and appears to be in expansion mode.

The new downtown Montreal Adonis is about 14,000 square feet and is located at the base of a new condo tower, Le Seville, on Ste Catherine Street West between Atwater and St-Mathieu Streets. Adonis may open a second similarly-sized location as part of a multi-building condominium development in Montreal’s Griffintown, in a project called District Griffin by Devimco.

A source tells us that Marché Adonis could open one or more stores in Downtown Toronto. We won’t elaborate until we can provide a confirmation.

Entrance to Marché Adonis’ downtown Montreal store. Image: Facebook

Adonis’ move is part of a larger trend that is seeing grocery retailers opening stores in downtown locations. Downtown Toronto and Vancouver are already home to a substantial number of grocery stores, and the trend is growing throughout Canada. Montreal continues this trend as new condos are constructed and more residents move downtown.

The above topic merits further comment. Canada is seeing a growing trend of car-free (or almost car-free) lifestyles. Urban food retail is adapting accordingly. We believe that walkable neighbourhoods should ideally have a food retailer (at least for staple items) within a five-minute walk, or about 400 metres from a residence’s front door. The idea has succeeded in Manhattan for generations and is experiencing increased popularity in American cities like Chicago, where there has been a noticeable increase in grocery stores in its densely populated River North neighbourhood. Toronto’s downtown core has seen considerable increase in grocery stores including a flagship Loblaws at the base of Maple Leaf Gardens. Vancouver’s downtown core includes grocery chains and boasts three upscale grocery stores, each about 25,000 square feet, called Urban Fare.

We’ll be writing more on urban grocery store retail, as we find the concept interesting. Living in a Downtown Vancouver condo tower, this author very much appreciates having three grocery stores within two blocks, helping make car ownership unnecessary.

[Marché Adonis website]

WILL SAKS FIFTH AVENUE OPEN IN CALGARY?

By
Retail Insider
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Hudson's Bay in downtown Calgary. Photo: Google

Saks Fifth Avenue could open in Calgary, and it could open either downtown or at the Chinook Centre. A Calgary store could follow Saks openings in Vancouver and Toronto, which are expected to open first according to HBC CEO Richard Baker.

Calgary cold be considered a prime city for Saks Fifth Avenue. It has over 1 million people. Salaries are high and income and other taxes are relatively low compared to the rest of Canada.

We would expect a Calgary Saks store to be, at least initially, located within existing Hudson’s Bay store space. More specifically, we’d likely see Saks either within the flagship Downtown Calgary Hudson’s Bay store, or somehow integrated into the current Hudson’s Bay store, now under renovation, at Chinook Centre. Locating within existing Hudson’s Bay space would be much more cost-effective for Saks as HBC owns its Downtown Calgary store and has an excellent long-term lease at its Chinook Centre store. 

As an aside, we’re not sure if Hudson’s Bay’s opening one or more “Saks departments” within its existing stores would be a good idea. Saks stores are noted for their customer service and attractive store interiors. Hudson’s Bay stores have not traditionally been known for either. The Saks brand could be damaged if it is placed too commonly within existing Bay stores, and we think segregating the two would be better for the Saks brand. With Richard Baker’s recent assertions that Hudson’s Bay would become “Canada’s Harrod’s” with the inclusion of Saks, we’re concerned that random Saks spaces within Hudson’s Bay stores could seriously harm Saks Fifth Avenue’s image both to Canadian shoppers as well as internationally. 

Saks Fifth Avenue, Downtown Calgary:

The Downtown Calgary Hudson’s Bay store is about 450,000 square feet over six levels. Its 75,000 square foot floorplates allow for some flexibility with the possible inclusion of Saks occupying one or more floors. Saks could also possibly occupy some of several floors or even include smaller “Saks departments” throughout the downtown store. 

The Bay store faces several challenges for Saks. It’s separated from Downtown Calgary’s main shopping Centre, The Core, by an adjacent shopping plaza called Scotia Centre. Scotia lacks the attractive interiors of the neighbouring Core, and its connection to Hudson’s Bay lacks both attractiveness and convenience of entry. Calgary’s downtown retail is dominated by above-ground pedestrian walkways and because of this, a Saks within the downtown Bay could be less than ideal. 

On the flip side, bringing Saks into the Downtown Calgary Bay could bring more shoppers eastward from The Core. A benefit to the location of Downtown Calgary’s Bay is that it is located across the street from the upscale shopping strip called Fashion Central, which includes upscale retailers such as Wolford. Saks could be an interesting addition if located across from Wolford at the corner of 8th Avenue Southwest and 1st Street Southwest. Furthermore, Saks could also increase the demand to remodel Scotia Centre to include better retailing, services, access and interiors.

A Saks in Downtown Calgary would join a 147,000 square foot Holt Renfrew store and would compete with a 31,000 square foot Harry Rosen store in the menswear category.

Saks Fifth Avenue, Chinook Centre: 

Hudson’s Bay’s Chinook Centre store is about 203,000 square feet. A full-sized Saks store would ideally be in the 75,000-130,000 square foot range. Given this, we would expect a smaller Saks shop-in-store at the Chinook Hudson’s Bay store, if at all. Chinook Centre will be expanding near the current Hudson’s Bay store and from the plans we have reviewed, we don’t see an allowance for another anchor store. Chinook Centre is one of Canada’s top malls, and next year it will open Canada’s first Nordstrom store. The 140,000 square foot Nordstrom will be a huge draw to the mall, and Saks could be a welcome addition as a fourth anchor store for Chinook (joining Hudson’s Bay, Nordstrom and a recently opened Target store). 

There would be at least two benefits to opening Saks at Chinook. One is the availability of ample parking in a city that loves its cars and has expensive downtown parking. The other is the lack of competition from Downtown Calgary’s Holt Renfrew store, which includes some of the same concessions carried at Saks, ie. Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Dolce & Gabbana, and Prada, among others.

Given the affluence, population and low taxes in Alberta, we’d be surprised if Calgary didn’t see a Saks location either downtown or at Chinook Centre.

SAMSUNG WILL OPEN ITS 2nd CANADIAN STORE AT TORONTO’S YORKDALE SHOPPING CENTRE

By
Retail Insider
-
Samsung at Yorkdale (2013)

Canada’s second Samsung store will open at Toronto’s Yorkdale Shopping Centre. It will be 2,160 square feet and will carry a wide variety of Samsung products including mobile, computing and consumer electronic products.

Canada’s first Samsung store opened in July 2012 at the Metropolis at Metrotown in Burnaby, BC. It is 1,603 square feet.

Samsung is the latest technology retailer to open multiple brick-and-mortar retail locations, similar to the likes of Apple Store and Microsoft Store concepts. 

Thank you to our Toronto Retail Insider ACT7 of Urban Toronto for forwarding us this article’s tip. 


[Samsung website]

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