Podcast: Luxury Nodes Shifting in Canada as Malls Take Over and New Ones are Built

Thanks, Craig Patterson. that was a very interesting report you gave about luxury retail nodes across Canada. Regarding Montreal, I recall many of those now-vanished shops you mentioned that used to be on Sherbrooke Street west of the Roddick Gates at McGill. Sainte Catherine Street was for the hoi polloi so it’s still remarkable for me to see Holt Renfrew joining the crowd there. The success Holt’s has had at that location is due to it being Montreal’s unchallenged luxury retail mothership and the established mystique of Ogilvy’s. The reluctance of so many popular upscale retailers to open in Quebec means that store can dominate its niche in the Montreal market in the way it can’t in Toronto or Vancouver. That dominance will be challenged in a couple of years by developer Carbonleo partnering with L Catterton Real Estate in the Royalmount project. Montreal being Canada’s second largest agglomeration, a market of at least four and a half million people, it was inevitable that someone or some entity would recognize an opportunity, despite the risk. The developers hope to leverage their relationship with LVMH’s roster of high-end brands to bring those big names to Montreal. Royalmount’s location is the equivalent of Yorkdale’s in Toronto, but unlike Toronto there’s the question of whether the luxury niche in Montreal can accommodate two coexisting nodes. If it can’t, my bias is toward Centreville/Rue Sainte Catherine; a thriving retail sector is an important part of downtown vitality as noted in your report about the situation in Edmonton this week. I’m glad to hear you’ll be in Montreal soon. I look forward to your coverage from there.