Simons Prepares for GTA Debut

Large format Quebec City-based retailer La Maison Simons will open its first Greater Toronto Area (GTA) store at Mississauga’s Square One mid-March of this year. The company is advertising for sales positions ahead of the spring opening, which will be the first of at least three Simons stores to open in the GTA by the year 2019. 

The 106,660 square foot Mississauga store will feature a new restaurant concept called Ève Café. Simons is advertising for employment positions at the new restaurant, and has also provided several renderings on its website. This will be the fourth restaurant concept in a Simons store — a food concept called SoupeSoup opened at Simons in Montreal’s CF Galeries d’Anjou in August of 2013, and Ève Cafés opened in August of 2015 at Les Prominades Gatineau‘s Simons near Ottawa, and in October of 2015 within Simons’ new Park Royal location in West Vancouver.  

Simons will occupy retail space in part of Square One’s former Sears location. Oxford Properties-owned Square One is seeing an overhaul which will include new retailers as well as a considerable amount of new retail space. A southwest mall expansion, for example, will house new Harry Rosen and Holt Renfrew flagships as well as several smaller upscale retailers. 

Several months ago, Simons’ CEO Peter Simons revealed that the company will open two more Toronto stores — a Scarborough Town Centre location in 2018, as well as a Yorkdale Shopping Centre store in 2019. Last year, Peter Simons also told us that he’s very interested in operating a downtown Toronto location, though his search for a large enough retail space was proving challenging. A potential deal at CF Toronto Eaton Centre never materialized, and there are currently very few options available to secure 100,000 square feet of high-traffic space in Toronto’s core.

Simons currently operates 11 stores in Canada. Of those, nine are in the province of Quebec, while two are in Western Canada — a West Edmonton Mall location opened in August of 2012, and West Vancouver’s Park Royal store opened mid-October of 2015.