This week Craig and Lee discuss the Vancouver luxury retail market including upcoming changes. While downtown Vancouver has dominated in terms of luxury retail offerings, two landlords are building malls that will also target luxury brands and may split the market into three separate luxury retail nodes that could have an impact on the region for years to come.
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Retail Insider content discussed this episode:
- SHAPE Announces L Catterton Partnership for Groundbreaking ‘The Amazing Brentwood’ Redevelopment (August 2017)
- Retail Profile: Brentwood Town Centre in Burnaby During COVID-19 (December 2020)
- Retail Tour Update: The Amazing Brentwood in Burnaby (June 2021)
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Interesting thoughts. As a Metro Vancouver resident I am also rooting for all 3 potential luxury nodes to coexist. Oakridge definitely looks like it will be a legitimate force in luxury and premium shopping in general. Its official website bluntly proclaims that it will be the single, top performing shopping centre in all of North America. That amazingly means more productive than Yorkdale or American malls like Ala Moana, South Coast Plaza or Bal Harbour. Link below for proof https://oakridgepark.com/shop/
As far as Holt Renfrew, many brands may elect to remain within Holts to maintain a downtown presence and simply open standalone boutiques in Oakridge or Brentwood to spread their wings across the Metro Vancouver market. That’s what I hope at least as several brands like LV, Gucci, Tiffany’s, Prada, Dior, etc. already operate separate boutiques within the same downtown trading area despite a Holts presence. Brands may prefer Oakridge over Brentwood if given a choice but with LVMH’s involvement in Brentwood, several LVMH brands could feasibly open as part of their partnership/investment with Shape as an intentional, strategic tenant rollout. The next 3-5 years should have a lot in store. I’m also waiting for other retailers like Decathlon to eventually enter the BC market.
Are there really enough big spenders even in Vancouver to sustain three luxury retail nodes? If so, it would signal the ascendance of Vancouver over Toronto as Canada’s capital of high-end consumption. I don’t see how they can all succeed, but I don’t live in Vancouver and plenty of people who do with on-the-scene intelligence have a different opinion. I thought Craig Patterson perceptively discussed the possible effect of more and more upmarket brands opening stand alone boutiques on Holt Renfrew’s business model. In Montreal, I hope the situation posited by Sawyer above for Vancouver is replicated: luxury brands with a concession at Holt Renfrew Ogilvy on Sainte Catherine Street would remain there to keep a presence in that market. After all, posh Golden Square Mile condominium owners and Westmount mansions are adjacent. But they will also flock to Carbonleo and L. Catterton’s Royalmount line up of LVMH all-stars for the moneyed suburbanites who don’t want to drive downtown because traffic is terrible and there’s no place to park. Quincaillerie Restauration au Québec? Really?!
P.S. Not Give-IN-chy, but Jzee-VEN-chee!