South Edmonton Common, one of the largest open-air retail developments in North America, continues to evolve with the addition of several new retailers and hospitality players in the market.
Harold Pacheco, Director of Marketing for Cameron Corporation, which operates the power centre, said Winners recently opened at the site.
“Winners came in to complete the trifecta of TJX companies. We had HomeSense and we had Marshalls. So it’s nice that we have all three,” said Pacheco.
“Chick-fil-A will be coming soon and South Edmonton Common is one of its first locations in the city. SoftMoc, the shoe store is also coming. Kinjo, a Japanese grill that’s popular to Calgary, they’ll be opening later this year as well. So first time in the Edmonton market.
“Specsavers will be opening soon. Torrid is new since December. A lot of places look to right size whereas we have some expansions of some of our tenants including Sleep Country. They’re doubling their space and Sketchers relocated across the parking lot and expanded their space as well. And Swimco which started on a shorter-term lease is now on a longer term and they’ve relocated too. I was happy to see those.
“And there’s some others we can’t talk about that we’re hoping we can announce when we finalize things,” added Pacheco.
RioCan owns part of South Edmonton Common where the Moxies and Chick-fil-A sites are located.
The 2.4 million-square-foot shopping centre, on 320 acres, is located at the gateway to the south entrance into Edmonton and situated at one of the city’s highest traffic locations, bordering the city’s eight-lane ring road, Anthony Henday Drive – making it easily accessible to shoppers from all of Edmonton’s suburban areas.
“The market feels pretty good. When we’ve looked at our visitor counts, they were around pre-COVID levels. So that’s always exciting. In some cases, beating them in some sites. Extremely busy if you come in on a weekend.
“We started to do some more local markets, especially in the vacancies. Obviously Nordstrom Rack they closed corporately. The closings we’ve seen have been corporate, nationwide closings like Bed, Bath & Beyond. Rooms + Spaces. For those, we’re trying to give a platform for local vendors if they want to host a market. We did Experience Asia which was to commemorate Asian Heritage Month. It was the first time doing that. We did that on May 25 and we had 1,500 people coming into the old Nordstrom Rack space in a five-hour span.”
Pacheco said South Edmonton Common has also hosted a seniors market and it is looking at some other markets as well. Plus there is a holiday market.
Currently, there are about 170 different businesses at the shopping centre with about 40 of them being restaurants.
He said the majority of lighting at the shopping centre has been converted to LED and signage has been refreshed. There are EV chargers now on the site and IKEA has solar panels.
“Obviously sustainability and ESG is an important thing. It should be an important thing for all of us,” added Pacheco.
