August 11, 2014
Early next year, Williams-Sonoma and Pottery Barn will exit Toronto’s 100 Bloor Street West. As a result, about 37,000 square feet of new retail space will become available in the heart of Canada’s ‘Mink Mile’. 100 Bloor’s landlord substantially raised its rents, according to sources.
Williams-Sonoma, Pottery Barn, and Pottery Barn Kids have occupied spaces at 100 Bloor Street West since 2001.
Roots Canada, which occupied 100 Bloor’s corner location until January of this year, will be replaced by Holt Renfrew’s first free-standing men’s store. Holt’s new men’s store will open this fall, occupying about 14,000 square feet on two levels.
100 Bloor is arguably ‘ground zero’ for Canada’s toniest luxury strip, with neighbours including Chanel, Dolce & Gabbana, Prada, Gucci, Hermes, Cartier, and others. No word yet on what will replace Williams-Sonoma and Pottery Barn’s retail space, spanning two levels with ample Bloor Street frontage.
According to Leigh Oshirak, Vice President, Public Relations & Marketing Communications of Williams-Sonoma, Inc:
“Pottery Barn, Pottery Barn Kids, and Williams-Sonoma will be vacating 100 Bloor Street West in Toronto in early 2015. The exact date will be determined in the coming months.
In the normal course of our business, we evaluate our real estate strategy and our leases as they come up for renewal and have made the difficult decision to close the Bloor Street stores based on the rising costs of real estate in this area.
We remain committed to growing our Canadian business and will continue to operate stores in Toronto at Sherway Gardens, Yorkdale Shopping Centre, and the Toronto Eaton Centre as well as in British Columbia, Alberta and Quebec.”
British Vancouver?
lol good catch
Ooopse – we’ll have to fix her comment. We only copied it without checking for edits…
Interesting…….Obviously sales in those spaces on Bloor are not what they want as they may have fallen off a tad…And being that I worked for PB here in Edmonton I can understand why they are vacating those spaces as the last time I was in the Bloor Street stores even on a Weekend they were not busy……..
Not a huge surprise considering that Williams Sonoma gouged on the exchange rate for years and switched out top end merchandise with product from China bit didn’t adjust their pricing. They also started hiring a very young staff to sell high priced items that in the end the staff didn’t have credibility. Let’s see what store will be next.
Looks like that 37000sqft of space will come in handy when Morguard decides to build their 83 story tower at 50 Bloor Street!