CF Chinook Centre in Calgary, one of the top shopping centres in the country, has scored a major coup.
The popular mall will be home for American brand YETI.
“What’s really great about YETI is this is going to be their first international store. They’ve got 22 locations in the U.S. but they don’t have any bricks and mortar stores outside of the U.S. It’s actually a really interesting story,” said Darren Milne, General Manager at Chinook Centre.
“YETI based on their own KPIs (Key Performance Indicator) found that Calgarians scored well on their outdoor activities metrics. In fact, better than any other Canadian city plus Calgary also over indexed on YETI sales based on population numbers.
“So really it was the behaviour patterns of their consumers here in Calgary that met YETI’s needs and drove their decision to open their first store outside of the U.S. here at CF Chinook Centre. It’s a great story for the Centre but also a really good story for YETI.”
The Calgary store will be about 3,600 square feet and will be built by SAJO.
Roy and Ryan Seiders founded YETI in 2006 based on a deep love for the outdoors and the belief that if something doesn’t work, fix it. And if it doesn’t exist, build it. Since then, they’ve been designing products that last for generations, get people out into the Wild, and keep them there longer.
Sari Samarah, President, CEO and Broker of Record for Value Insight Realty represented YETI for this transaction.
In the past year or so, Chinook Centre has opened iconic retailers such as Uniqlo, Zara expanded into a flagship location, Alo Yoga and Nike. Tilley was the most recent opening a few weeks ago.
“We had a lot of openings in 2023. When we look at 2024 moving forward, this 12-month period coming up we’re going to spend a lot of time working with different tenants to relocate them and right size them,” said Milne.
“The long-term goal is we need to create some additional space for other luxury and aspirational retailers who are interested in coming into the Centre. And so I think we’ll have more to say about that in a year from now about how that looks. Really that’s what our leasing plan is over the next year. So you’ll see some interesting movements in the mall over the next year of different tenants as we execute on that plan.”
Milne said Chinook will have more to say over the next few months about some of the relocations that will be taking place in the shopping centre and how that will impact its leasing mix in the future.
“We really feel like we’ve got an opportunity here to start creating space for more luxury and aspirational retailers and that’s what we’re going to continue to do,” he said.
“The market for that in Calgary is really good. If you look at some of our luxury and aspirational retailers right now, sales continue to remain really strong. We’re certainly seeing a demand for that in not only our customer research but what we hear from customers. They’re looking for more of those kinds of tenants here. And there’s really an absence of some of that in Calgary right now. So we certainly have an opportunity to fill that.”
Recently, Chinook hosted the interactive entertainment experience Mirror Mirror, which was at the mall for 16 weeks in some vacated space left behind by the departure of Nordstrom.
“Fair to say, it met all of our expectations. And we also learned a lot about what it’s like to offer entertainment. So it’s something we’re going to continue to look at. The traffic for it in terms of ticket sales was really strong. It did really well. And we see there’s opportunity to obviously do more of these kinds of things in the future,” added Milne.
“The Nordstrom space is still under development. Hoping to have something in the near future to announce . . . The other interesting thing that’s going on at Chinook Centre right now is we’re doing some projects to make the customer journey easier and a little bit more accessible for our customers. So for example anyone who is familiar with the centre knows that the 61st Avenue entrance coming into the section the intersection at times could be a little bit better. We’re actually going to be doing a project where we’re going to be just re-aligning that intersection so the entrance into the shopping centre and the exit from the shopping centre is better for vehicle traffic. We’re going to be adding a staircase into the Centre to create better movement for traffic between the first and second floor.
“We’re also going to be exploring next year some different ways to create better pedestrian access particularly from the northwest side of the shopping centre. And then we’re also going to be later this year adding some new seating pods and new mall furniture throughout. Something that better fits the expectations of our shoppers. Nicer seating. Comfort seating. And places where people can come and really feel like it’s the community gathering place that we think it is as well.”
Milne said there is nothing new to say about possible future development plans to densify the site.
“I think if you ask me later this year we might have a little more to say but nothing right now,” he said.
