Vancouver’s Robson Street is seeing new retailers opening as the popular shopping street continues to transition. Several new retailers have recently signed leases on Robson Street and will be opening in the coming weeks and months, while some closures and a cancelled project will impact the area.
The main commercial stretch of Robson Street spans from Bute Street to the west to Hornby Street and the Vancouver Art Gallery Square to the east. We’ll also discuss retail happenings on Robson Street near Granville Street, which recently saw Nordstrom vacate a large space.
Some new retailers have already been announced on Robson Street, and others will be announced in this article. The shift begins at the corner of Robson Street and Burrard Street, with the recent announcement that German athletic brand adidas will be taking a massive two-level space recently vacated by Victoria’s Secret. It will be a first-to-Canada concept store with more details soon to be announced.
One interesting retail move not yet announced publicly is the exit of Roots from its iconic corner space at the northwest corner of Robson and Burrard Streets. Sources told Retail Insider that Vancouver-based Arc’teryx came in and scooped up the lease from Roots, which didn’t necessarily want to leave its prime corner space with a retail location considered to be a flagship store. Retail Insider interviewed Roots co-founder Michael Budman about the 4,500 square foot store in February of 2014, when Roots had renewed its lease and planned to renovate and expand the top-performing store. One source told Retail Insider that the new Art’teryx would span about 6,400 square feet, which means there could be vertical expansion of the building.
The Roots building at 1001 Robson Street was occupied by women’s fashion retailer One + One from the 1980s until 1996, when Roots secured the lease. One + One said in an article published on October 12, 1996 in the Vancouver Sun, that its rent had been $88 a square foot and that the rent for new tenant Roots would be about $150 a square foot.
Arc’teryx already has a store location very close by at 813 Robson Street, and parent company Amer Sports is said to be converting the 4,020 square foot building into a retail location for its brand Peak Performance. Arc’teryx substantially renovated the building in 2017 for its new store, having secured the space from previous retail tenant Le Chateau.
There are rumours that Roots may have secured a smaller retail space formerly occupied by TWG Tea at 929 Robson Street, which are not yet confirmed.
Club Monaco recently vacated its storefront at 1042 Robson Street after occupying the almost 9,000 square foot building for over two decades. Construction hoarding recently went up for UK-based JD Sports, which is expanding across Canada under a mandate with broker Jordan Karp of Savills Canada who negotiated the lease deal on behalf of the retailer. Mario Negris and Martin Moriarty of Marcus & Millichap represented the landlord in the deal.
Other retailers are opening on the street, including watch brand Swatch which seems to have been delayed in its construction on a store at 1155 Robson Street. Lush Cosmetics has also finished renovations on its store to add a Lush Spa concept, a first for Canada, at 1020 Robson Street.
Fashion brand Esprit is about to make its return to Canada with its first concept store set to open at 1088 Robson Street. The retail space had been occupied by J. Crew prior to its Canadian exit about three years ago. Esprit also plans to open a flagship in Toronto this year.
On the 900 block of Robson Street, luxury brand Salvator Ferragamo is expected to eventually vacate its space at 918 Robson Street, in a building also targeted for redevelopment. Ferragamo would relocate its Vancouver retail operations to Oakridge Park in 2025, according to sources, vacating its 918 Robson Street premises where Ferragamo has had a store since the spring of 1981.
The 800 block of Robson Street is now part of a public plaza with the Vancouver Art Gallery to the north and a courthouse complex to the south. The 700 block of Robson Street will also be seeing some significant changes as tenants are signed for the Nordstrom building which has been vacant since last spring when the retailer exited its Canadian operations. There are rumours that Quebec City-based large format fashion retailer La Maison Simons could occupy the top two retail levels of the former Nordstrom, though nothing is confirmed either by Simons or landlord Cadillac Fairview, which owns CF Pacific Centre. At some point in the future, if increased height and density could be obtained from the City of Vancouver, the site could see tower redevelopment.
At the southeast corner of Granville and Robson Street, new retail is expected in a vacated space that once housed Payless Shoes. Prior to the pandemic, Japanese fashion brand A Bathing Ape (or BAPE) was said to have leased about 13,000 square feet, prior to deciding to cancel the deal (as well as two others in the city) due to issues overseas.
The multi-level 90,000 square foot Bonnis-owned building at the northeast corner of Robson and Granville Street was recently listed for sale, housing big-box retailers including Best Buy and Winners. A recent Daily Hive article pointed out that the assessed value on the building is almost entirely in its land, indicating a potential redevelopment if the owner can obtain increased height and density allowances from the City. If substantial height and density were granted, an office tower could be expected.
Robson Street will continue to attract new retailers as shoppers continue to visit the clustering of stores in the downtown core. Since the 1980s, national and international brands have operated stores on Robson Street, which in decades before had been a street nicknamed Robsonstrasse with various German businesses. Robson Street struggles with aesthetics today, with its relatively narrow worn sidewalks having not been updated in decades. It might be a good idea for the City of Vancouver to consider downtown street updates, given that the Oakridge Park project on the West Side will be completed in the spring of 2025. Oakridge Park will be a sparkling new enclosed shopping centre that is expected to take retail foot traffic and dollars away from downtown Vancouver, particularly at a time when the downtown core struggles with social issues such as homelessness, addiction and crime. Robson Street will need to compete with suburban shopping centres in the years to come, and already we’ve seen notable vacancies in the area.
