The Scarborough Town Centre is redeveloping more than 140,000 square feet of retail space to accommodate three new, large-format retailers including Decathlon, the French sporting goods retailer.
The redeveloped space has been vacant for a few years since retail giant Sears closed its doors.
“Scarborough Town Centre is located at the heart of a vibrant and growing community and serves as a gathering place for people to shop, dine, work and be entertained. Oxford’s goal is to create a best-in-class retail experience, and this investment in STC paired with major retailer openings at the centre indicates a commitment to the region. This redevelopment is about connecting people with great places and with brands they know and love,” said Thien Nguyen, General Manager at Scarborough Town Centre.
Scarborough Town Centre is the largest regional shopping centre in the eastern Greater Toronto Area, with more than 200 shops and services and 1.6 million square feet of retail space. Ranked as one of the top 20 performing shopping centres in Canada, Scarborough Town Centre sees about 20 million shoppers per year. Located at HWY 401, between Brimley Road and McCowan Road. Scarborough Town Centre is managed by Oxford Properties Group and owned by AIMCo and Omers Realty.
Nguyen said Decathlon is the only confirmed key tenant at this time for the redeveloped space. The sporting goods retailer will occupy about 46,000 square feet of space that will feature extensive inventory and experiential zones, along with programming and activities making it a community sports hub.
She said Decathlon is expected to occupy the space in the fall of next year.
“There’s another tenant that we’re hoping to secure and one large non-major as well. The leases haven’t been signed yet but we’re hoping for all of the three tenants to align and open by October 2023,” added Nguyen.
“It’s the former Sears space and we haven’t done anything with the space since Sears closed four or five years ago. Last year during the pandemic we were fortunate enough to work with the City of Toronto to open a vaccine clinic on the second level.”
The overall space is on three levels in a 230,000-square foot box. Nguyen said the shopping centre has not figured out what it wants to do with the vacant space of about 60,000 square feet on the third level.
“It might just be storage because the shopping centre is limited on storage for the other retailers. So it might not be converted to retail space,” she added.
A pop-up Decathlon store opened in late May on the lower level of the shopping centre near Shopper’s Court and it features top-selling products and offers shoppers an idea of what to expect to see at the permanent location next year.
“At Decathlon, we’re passionate about making sports more accessible to all by offering quality products at affordable prices,” said Nicolas Larose, Store Leader, Decathlon. “We’re so thrilled to be introducing the Scarborough community to our brand with this new pop-up store in such an excellent location. We look forward to becoming a destination for all sports enthusiasts in the area, and we can’t wait to open our flagship location soon at STC.”
Nguyen said the centre is underserved in that category and given the demographics of the primary market around Scarborough Town Centre it will just amplify its retail offering in being able to bring the retailer to the community.
She said the first week of Decathlon’s pop-up store was very successful with lineups of people.
Decathlon has more than 1,600 stores in over 60 countries around the world. It designs, manufactures, tests, and sells apparel and equipment for over 65 different sports. Currently, there are 11 Decathlon stores in Canada. Oberfeld Snowcap represents Decathlon in Canada and negotiated the Canadian leases including the new Scarborough store.
Wonder if Simons is still considering a store here. Doesn’t sounds like it though with the break up of the Sears store into multiple units.