Hudson’s Bay confirmed on Monday that it will be closing its two-level department store in downtown Regina. It marks the fourth Hudson’s Bay store to close in a Canadian downtown core since 2020.
The downtown Regina Hudson’s Bay store will close next year, marking the end of a 55-year run of the retailer in the city. The Cornwall Centre store was the only Hudson’s Bay store left in southern Saskatchewan (others closed in decades past). The Hudson’s Bay store at Midtown Plaza in downtown Saskatoon will remain open, and will be the only one left in the province.
The retailer provided a statement to Retail Insider for this article. “HBC continually evaluates its real estate portfolio and looks at opportunities to optimize holdings. Through normal course of business, Hudson’s Bay has made the decision not to renew the lease for the Hudson’s Bay store at Cornwall Centre in Regina. With the lease expiring, the Hudson’s Bay store will close to the public in April 2025.”
“We thank our customers in Regina for their patronage and hope to continue serving the community. Hudson’s Bay will continue to operate its store in Saskatoon, and will also serve customers through thebay.com. We are committed to treating every associate with respect and fairness through this process, and transfer opportunities will be explored where feasible.”
Hudson’s Bay moved into Cornwall Centre in downtown Regina in the year 2000, taking over the 182,000 square foot lease of a former Eaton’s store that had operated there since the mall’s opening in 1981 (Eaton’s closed in 1999 with the bankruptcy of the company). Prior to opening at Cornwall Centre, Hudson’s Bay operated a standalone store at the corner of Hamilton Street and 12th Avenue that opened in 1970.
Cornwall Centre’s management company Cushman & Wakefield provided a statement for Retail Insider. “We have recently learned that Hudson’s Bay will close its Cornwall Centre location next year. While we recognize the longstanding relationship this iconic brand has held within the shopping centre, as we look to the future of Cornwall Centre and the downtown revitalization plans, we are confident about the opportunities this brings for our customers and the community.”
The Cornwall Centre Hudson’s Bay store’s sales were said to be struggling — in the fall of 2021, the retailer closed its basement level. Sources reached out to Retail Insider over a year ago, speculating on the store’s closure.
Prior to taking the former Eaton’s location at Cornwall Centre, Hudson’s Bay operated a three level standalone store on Hamilton Street that created a commercial vibrancy in the area. The Hudson’s Bay Company also had a presence in Regina in decades past when it owned the Simpsons chain of department stores — Simpsons opened its first Regina store in a warehouse district north of the downtown core in the 1920’s, and in 1946 took over local department store R.H. Williams at Hamilton Street and 11th Avenue where it operated until June of 1981. The Hudson’s Bay Company acquired the upscale Toronto-based Simpsons chain in 1978 and closed the unprofitable Regina location just a few years later.
The 573,000 square foot Cornwall Centre has been a dominant force in downtown Regina since its opening in 1981, and currently features about 80 retailers over two levels. The centre’s other anchor store was Sears Canada, which shut in 2018. Cornwall Centre also was once connected by an over-the-street pedway to an upscale mall called The Galleria which closed in the early 2000s. Interestingly, the Hudson’s Bay Company said in 1981 that its decision to close the unprofitable standalone downtown Regina Simpsons store was partly because of the opening of Cornwall Centre, which had new competitor anchors Eaton’s and Sears.
Department stores were once the domain of the downtown core, and suburban retail is partly responsible for the near death of retail in many downtowns across North America. At one time, downtowns in communities across the continent boasted department stores of various sizes. Fast forward to today, and few downtown department stores remain, with that number dwindling in Canada as Hudson’s Bay continues to close locations.
Since the spring of 2020, Hudson’s Bay has closed three key downtown department stores in Canada. In November of 2020, the massive 675,000 square foot Hudson’s Bay store in downtown Winnipeg closed, marking the end of an era for the building which once served as the company’s main flagship store. In June of 2021, Hudson’s Bay closed its 168,000 square foot store in downtown Edmonton, which followed the closure of a Holt Renfrew store nearby. In May of 2022, Hudson’s Bay closed one of its two downtown Toronto stores at the corner of Yonge and Bloor Streets, leaving the flagship Bay store at Yonge and Queen that began as the flagship store for Simpsons.
Hudson’s Bay has closed other stores in Canada in recent memory, including at Jardins Dorval in Montreal in the fall of 2021 and a small store on Banff Avenue in Banff, Alberta, in the summer of 2023. Vancouver-based retailer Arc’teryx is said to have leased part of the former Banff Bay building, which is under renovations.
Hudson’s Bay also recently announced the closure of its store at Burlington Centre in Burlington, Ontario, which is now set to shutter in February of 2025.
For months, Retail Insider has been visiting Hudson’s Bay stores across the country, and something appears to be a bit off. Most of the stores visited appeared to have escalators out of order, and there’s a noticeable lack of music being played in many locations. Even some washrooms in some stores are out of order — sources told Retail Insider that the lack of music and washrooms was due to not paying bills, while the cost of electricity and economizing could be responsible for the escalator outages. On Tuesday of this week, Retail Insider visited the Queen Street flagship store in Toronto where many of the escalators were not running, and all four passenger elevators were out of commission that day.
Recent news reports out of Vancouver indicate that the downtown flagship Hudson’s Bay store is in rough shape — escalator and elevator outages means people have to find their way floor-to-floor via large staircases in the store, something witnessed in January by this author during a trip to the city. Last week, The Vancouver Sun reported on the store and interviewed customers who generally gave negative reviews of the in-store experience and lack of maintenance. HBC announced during the pandemic that the store would be redeveloped with an office tower built above, and sources now tell Retail Insider that a new proposal for the building is in the works.
The closure of another downtown Hudson’s Bay department store is bad news for Canada, which has only a handful remaining. Hudson’s Bay continues to operate downtown stores in Calgary, Saskatoon, Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal.
The 400,000 square foot downtown Calgary Hudson’s Bay store was downsized to about half of its former retail space during the pandemic, and is now three floors (down from six in years past). The 174,000 square foot downtown Saskatoon store relocated from a standalone building to Midtown Plaza in 2000, similar to what was done at the time in Regina. The 800,000 square foot Toronto Queen Street store continues to operate with an integrated/adjacent Saks Fifth Avenue store which has seen better days, while the 335,000 square foot downtown Ottawa Hudson’s Bay store continues to operate across the street from CF Rideau Centre. In Montreal, the massive 655,000 square foot downtown Hudson’s Bay store was slated for redevelopment, and so far only the store’s retail space has been downsized with some upper levels shut off to the public.
In decades past, Canadian downtowns were home to multiple department stores — that included names such as Eaton’s, Woodward’s, Hudson’s Bay, Simpsons and Morgans. The first four of these were all present in Canadian downtowns until 1991. Sears Canada also operated downtown stores until it began selling off real estate (making Nordstrom’s entry into Canada possible) before Sears Canada’s demise in 2018.
The United States, as well, has seen its city downtown cores decimated over the years, with a few large traditional department stores remaining. And that number will be reduced even more with the recent announcement that Macy’s would look to vacate its large store on Union Square in San Francisco. The only other American downtowns with a meaningful department store presence today include New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington DC and Boston.
Related Retail Insider Articles
- Downtown Regina’s Cornwall Centre Unveils Renovation Amid Challenges [Photos]
- HBC to Expand Zellers Brand Across Canada in Larger Footprints After Spring Pop-Up Store Launch [Interviews]
- Nostalgia vs Reality: Exclusive Poll Shows Canadians Warm to Zellers’ Return but Hesitate to Shop One Year After Relaunch
I expect Hudson’s Bay will close more stores in Canada within the next 19 months.
Oh well, looks more and more like dying Sears redux with the condition of stores being allowed to gradually deteriorate amid increasing closures. The big, transformative projects that were announced and publicized a few years ago for the heritage downtown Montreal and Vancouver locations show no signs of materializing, and instead, both stores have been downsized. It’s been asserted by various reporting in business media that the retail stores are an annoying distraction to HBC head Richard Baker whose ultimate goal is to monetize the considerable real estate value of their locations. There’s nothing in this latest coverage to disprove that belief.
The monetisation of real estate is most certainly a big part of the story. The Bay has always been about making huge sums of money since its beginnings in the fur trade. It hasn’t always been a nice story either.
It’s interesting what stores HBC has decided to vacate and some of the ones that still remain (Sydney NS, Prince George BC, Woodbine in Toronto to name a few). Wonder what their end game is…a chain of 40 stores, 60? Seems like a giant missed opportunity to be “Canada’s Store” with so many competitors gone and other smaller retailers thriving in markets HBC is absent from (Sephora for example).
It is a sad situation, having been in apparel manufacturing and importing, as a supplier to department stores in Canada, the endless closings and layoffs is just so bad for Canadian employees. Pensions have gone down the drain, along with these closures. On the other hand, the growth of Amazon, Shopify and other small on -line companies, has replaced these once magnificent department stores. Now with AI in the forefront, we will see many more changes in our retail environment. Developers must be at their best to handle the many changes still to come.
They’re handling it by building multi-storey apartment towers in those massive suburban mall parking lots. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but will there be green space among all that concrete, like we see in the marketing sketches? Will small, local businesses be able to afford the rents in the newly renovated malls, or will it be just endless hallways of the same chains everywhere?
Would be nice if someone could compile a list of Hudson’s Bay locations and when their leases expire -will give good insight into which locations will close next.
Probably almost impossible to find that info since HBC is a private company now or it would be a ton of work for a person to contact every landlord HBC has to find out when the lease is expiring (if they would even provide that info). On the other hand think HBC owns good chunk of their stores? Retail Insider should write a more in-depth article on the state of HBC and where the company’s retail operations are headed. Have a feeling store closures for Hudson’s Bay is going to become more common as leases start to expire.
Most of the current Hudson’s Bay stores in Canada are leased, and terms of expiry vary — some still have decades left, given they were legacy leases from such former retailers as Eaton’s, Simpson’s and Woodward’s. Hudson’s Bay owns several of the downtown stores and other real estate assets.
It’s pretty clearly near the end for the Bay and department stores in general, with the exception of a few in New York, Paris and London which seem to have found a new life as tourist attractions. Some people still use their vacations to shop because they’re pressed for time and can’t do it the rest of the year, but online shopping has disrupted the old rhythms.
I have many memories of the old Simpson store in Regina – some good and some not so good. A friend’s dad used to run the advertising department there and was responsible for the beautiful holiday windows at Christmas. A classmate was turned down for a job she’d applied for because she was Jewish.
Shopping was the way we spent our Saturdays, mostly just browsing and dreaming, as teens. As we got older, Saturday shopping became a family event. When I no longer worked downtown, it became something I did when visiting other places.
I still go downtown to shop with friends. Shops along the street and massive new malls are the attraction now. I often walk past the Bay, but haven’t been inside for at least five years. My last purchase was an online order during the pandemic. It was a toaster, on sale and cheaper than the same model at Amazon.
We now shop at stores that specialise. The stores selling a mix of goods, like Costco and IKEA, still have a limited range of stock compared to the old department stores, but among what they have there’s either a wide choice (IKEA) or a highly curated selection (Costco). We have more specialty stores. And those items you’d have to run all over town to find, or wait weeks to be delivered to your local merchant, are just a click away on your phone.
We are a good part of the way through a major shift in retailing. The finishing touches will be a few smaller shops in walkable neighbourhoods – if you’ve ever lived in a neighbourhood like that you’ll understand why this is coming – where we’ll do our daily shopping, larger shopping areas next to entertainment centres downtown attracting tourists and locals, and huge suburban malls surrounded by apartment towers.
Hudson’s Bay doesn’t deserve to be Canada’s anything. The company is unable to provide a comfortable working environment for associates, much less for customers; they don’t pay vendors… for music, for elevator and escalator repair, for product; massive discounts and constant flash sales have trained customers to not purchase anything at full price; the product mix is boring and can be found anywhere else in the city; the in-store experience, aside from everything being broken, is abysmal- visual merchandising and fixtures are tired and outdated, the giant red sale powers they throw up during Bay Days look like bargain bin outlet liquidation. There aren’t enough associates to service customers, much less maintain standards. The same executives have been with the company for 30+ years and keep doing the same things while expecting different results. Micromanagement is rampant on all levels. The organization is unwieldly and doesn’t execute well on anything- look at brand launches like Zellers and Cat & Jack. Snooze fest. They’ve gone through 3 presidents in the past 3 years and are constantly “resetting the vision”–nothing changes, except for a handful of redundant executives being let go. There is zero company culture despite the historical significance of HBC in North America. I feel for the associates in-store who will lose their jobs, but the decision makers deserve to go out of business.
Assume you work or worked for HBC? It’s very interesting to hear the perspective from an insider. I can only comment as a customer but the shopping experience is a mess. The stores are very tired and nothing seems to flow easily. I really like The Bay but shopping there most of the time now is a really poor experience. Online is even worse of an experience.
Retail insider should interview employees of HBC and write a “Inside Hudson’s Bay” story.
I quietly spoke to a few employees here in Toronto today (at the Queen Street Bay store and in Saks). The conversations were not generally positive in terms of working conditions and general perception of the business.
I can confirm that. Hours are being cut to less than full time in the cosmetics department, their flagship business. Morale is down, though nobody expects the store to close. When they sold the building to Cadillac Fairview, they negotiated a dirt cheap long term lease, so they’re essentially there for free and have no incentive to give up that lease. If/when Hudson’s Bay Queen closes, it’ll be because there’s nothing left of the company.
Hudson’s Bay stores have been on the decline the last few years. Most are clunkers in need a renovations but they need to fix the core business model first. HBC has the potential to be Canada’s Store but doesn’t seem to care about the history they have in this country. They have a fleet of aged stores that haven’t seen a dollar in upgrades. They went on a renovation spree about 12 years ago but those where just mostly cheaply done renos to keep the places from totally falling apart. A few stores like the Calgary South Centre store got a massive overhaul, and that store is beautiful and fits the brand. They need to focus on what Canadian want to see HBC sell, the buyers seem lost and will buy junk to overpriced out of touch merchandise. Zellers was a great move to bring it back but HBC did that on the cheap. Hopefully they can right size the business and focus on running 40ish really amazing stores and add in a few full line Zellers stores. Everyone in Canada knows HBC and has some type of positive memory of the Hudson’s Bay and Zellers brand.
If you go into a HBC store today there is no music playing, the elevators and escalators are broken, the flooring, paint, ceilings are all dirty, burnt out light bulbs, checkouts from 1980, merchandise that is a mix of clearance clutter and some new items tossed in. The Bays website is just as bad, its clunky and a mix of weird merchandise that is mostly 3rd party sellers. They brought in a line of Hudson’s Bay items and those are quality, but the HBC Striped merchandise never got a spring/summer line, not sure if that is also telling of the financial trouble the company is in? But even the HBC Striped products everyone has come to love they played around with and made a mess/ weird design choices that nobody seems to be buying now. I love HBC but they need to do a big turnaround to win the hearts of Canadians back. I wish HBC well and hope the retail business can survive. Its survived 355 years, it can weather this storm. We will likely see more HBC store closers are they really do need to right size the business and bring it in the 2020’s.
You’re right on all points. HBC’s cachet is in its Canadiana brand (even if it’s no longer Canadian). Focus on that, with a a small portfolio and I think they can do well.
I agree on bringing back full fledged Zellers stores. Decades later, it still holds its loveable budget brand in consumers’ minds. Swap out some of their lower performing HBC stores for Zellers, sell budget fashion and get into food basics and suddenly, they’re a Canadian Walmart.
Right, JK. Hudson’s Bay didn’t even have to buy out the competition like Macy’s in the U.S. Instead it plodded along as, one by one, Eaton’s, Woodward’s, Simpson’s and any remaining local brands collapsed. Now it’s Canada’s department store in spite of itself. With Nordstrom gone, its only challenger is Simon’s, a store run by people who actually care about the business, as opposed to Hudson’s Bay where the stores more and more seem to be a pretense for some other more lucrative objective. That Vancouver Sun article was quite damning: management is already letting go, counting the days till they can unload this decaying asset and collect with their bankrolls intact and enhanced. The message they are sending to the folks who make their way inside is: We really can’t be bothered. Have a nice day!
Hudson’s Bay is stuck in 1980. Hudson’s Bay could revamp and be successful. Beauty section could be like Sephora or Beauty Boutique, home department with more Anko/Hudson’s Bay products/brands. Add proper centralized checkouts , proper online order pick up and returns. I’m sure the inventory system is a disaster if they run off the same system as The Bays accent checkout system. The stores feel so stale. You can tell management doesn’t care about the business. I’m sure it’s full of long term stodgy mangers who don’t want to change.
Wonder if the new Hudson’s Bay planned for Oakridge Mall is still going ahead? Cant recall the last time i’ve been in a Hudson’s Bay store that wasn’t falling apart.
I’ve been told that this store will be opening next year. I’m super curious what the “new concept” will be like. Hopefully it includes escalators that are operational, I was just at the Queen Street flagship in Toronto and about half of the escalators are not working, and I believe all four elevators are out of service this afternoon.
Is Hudson’s Bay trimming the fat with all these store closure the last year or are we finally seeing the slowly sinking ship….sink? All I can say is the shopping experience online is atrocious and in store is no better. I was at the Calgary Sunridge Mall Hudson’s Bay and the escalator and elevator are both broken. You have to exit the store and use the malls escalator if you want to shop the second floor. The store has no music playing. During checking you can’t see the screen because it’s broken off. While scanning the whole computer crashed, the worker said it happens all the time…. Checkout computers look very very old. Notice the Zellers Anko products haven’t been restocked. The Zellers section there was very limited now and lots of empty space. When it first open it was busy with people shopping and full of Anko products.
Your last paragraph is slightly inaccurate. Many cities in NA still have department stores downtown. Washington DC, Seattle Nordstrom flagship, Portland, Miami, and many more
Hello Rolph, I will update this to say ‘traditional department stores’ — I’ve excluded Nordstrom from this classification given its traditionally fashion focus, though I know some US Nordstrom stores have more home goods now. I also see Washington DC still has the Macy’s store! (I thought that one closed). Unfortunately Macy’s appears to have closed its downtown Miami store (not to mention Seattle, which was a shame).
There is a Macy’s store in downtown Miami Beach. Yes, the Macy’s store in downtown Miami closed a few years ago.
A sad state of affairs. I’m glad I’m not the only one who was wondering what is up with the non-functional escalators and elevators. I’ve visited 4 HB stores in Calgary of late and only one (Southcentre) had operational escalators. At Sunridge they have signage that both elevators and escalators are down, asking you to leave the store and use the mall to move between floors. (And if that’s not a retail faux pas I don’t know what is.) At Market Mall they are using an emergency exit to move between floors (good luck finding it – I had to ask!) And at Chinook the escalators were off but you could still use them as stairs. I’ll have to check out Downtown just to appease my curiosity. All this to say: It’s disappointing to see this unfolding before our eyes and I better use up my HB Rewards points soon.
This makes me sad for some reason. Hudson’s Bay holds a close spot to my heart. My grandma worked at the company, I had my first job in high school at the company. They treated us both really well. I know times have changed and the company is no longer the same but I’m still a loyal shopper. Even me being a loyal shopping I’ve noticed a quick downfall of the shopping experience. Would really like to know what the plan is for Hudson’s Bay? I enjoyed the Zellers relaunch but noticed that also has been shoved to the side it seems. The Bay website doesn’t have reviews on the products anymore. People talk about the checkout system funny thing it’s the same when I worked there in 2008 and it was from the 1980’s can’t imagine they can do much with that system to make it work for retailing on 2024. The company executives are to blame. They didn’t want to spend money on upgrades or change when they had the money and time to do so. I will still be a loyal HBC shopper the best I can be. I’m cheering them on with my support. Let’s just hope they appreciate that support.
Not surprised to hear of another Hudson’s Bay closure. The customer service is abysmal. State of the stores is appalling. The stores are falling apart just like the customer service. The whole company gives off we don’t care vibes. Online ordering is risky. Never know what you’ll get and it’s packed full of 3rd party resellers, Sad to see but not surprised.
I wonder if saks will be exiting Canada? Have heard rumblings about that. Craig can you chime in if true?
It would be nice if The Bay would move into the Northgate Mall in Regina when it closes its Cornwall Centre location.