Forever 21‘s sister brand F21 RED will open its first Western Canadian store this fall. The 15,000 square foot store will be located at Highstreet, an open-air lifestyle centre in Abbotsford, east of Vancouver. It will be F21 RED’s third Canadian store.
F21 RED will open between 20 and 30 Canadian locations over the next five years, according to representative broker Jeffrey Berkowitz of Aurora Realty Consultants. F21 RED’s first Canadian location opened in the fall of 2015 at Devonshire Mall in Windsor, Ontario, and a second location opened soon after at Ottawa’s Place D’Orleans. Mr. Berkowitz worked on the Abbotsford deal with Trevor Thomas from Aurora Realty Consultants’ Vancouver office.
The F21 RED concept “offers customers a deeper inventory of the trend-led staples from Forever 21, Forever 21 Men, Forever 21 Plus and Forever 21 Girls” according to a Forever 21 spokesperson and furthermore, the brand is “able to deliver greater quantities of the styles and trends customers seek, while maintaining the value and entry-level category price points Forever 21 is known for offering”. F21 RED launched in Los Angeles in May of 2014 with a location in suburban Los Angeles.
Abbotsford’s Highstreet is a three level, 600,000 square foot lifestyle centre featuring retail, dining and entertainment components. Anchor tenants include Sephora, Walmart Supercentre, London Drugs, H&M, Old Navy and Cineplex VIP Cinema. The centre is managed and operated by Vancouver-based landlord Shape Properties.
“We’re excited that Forever 21 has chosen Highstreet for its first Western Canadian F21 RED location,” said Darren Kwiatkowski, Executive Vice President of Shape Properties. “F21 RED’s decision to locate at Highstreet is directly correlated to Highstreet’s fresh new format which provides customers with an extraordinary open-air retail, dining and entertainment experience.” Mr. Kwiatkowski explained that “the successes of innovative, international brands at Highstreet like H&M and Sephora helped to secure F21 RED and have contributed to an increase in customer traffic of over 20% in 2015. As a result, we anticipate a number of exciting new leasing announcements in the coming year.”
