Retail leasing activity at Cadillac Fairview’s two Calgary jewel properties – CF Chinook Centre and CF Market Mall – has been very busy in the past year.
And there’s plenty of speculation of what could happen in the market as well with Hudson’s Bay and Saks Fifth Avenue in the future.
“Overall we’re feeling very good about the market. Vacancy is down. We’re probably sitting at about 92, 93 per cent occupied in our portfolio coast to coast – even a little bit better in the Calgary marketplace. Demand is strong. As interest rates have started to slack off in the U.S. and Canada in the last six months, we’re seeing an influx of new brands wanting to come into the Canadian marketplace, coming to Western Canada,” said Darryl Schmidt, Vice President of National Leasing for Cadillac Fairview.
“Yeti opened very strong in Chinook which has been good. We’ve been able to use that as a bit of a calling card when we’re talking to other U.S. brands because that’s the first international store for them. The first to market in Canada. The first to market in Canada. We’re feeling good about where the market’s at right now.”
At Cadillac Fairview’s Chinook property, Schmidt said that in addition to Yeti, Anne Louise Jewellers has come back to the mall, Lugaro Jewellers is under construction, Kiokki (Asian cosmetic chain) opened two weeks ago and is killing it.
“In early 2025 we will welcome a freestanding Omega store beside Louis Vuitton (in current APM Monaco location) and Ray Ban on the upper level (former Pandora location),” he explained.
“We’re more in a bit of a lull right now because we touched almost 250,000 square feet in the last 24 months. So we’re doing a lot of repositionings for late 2025, early 2026. You’re going to see Shoppers Drug Mart expand. You’re going to see a repositioning of Old Navy, Gap and then adding in net new brands into the asset. But really it’s a little bit of a lull. The calm before the storm before we reset a number of brands.”
At Cadillac Fairview’s Market Mall property, he said Vena Nova, a new jewelry concept opened recently replacing Birks, Carter’s Osh Kosh is under construction as is housewares brand Zwilling Henckels.
“You’ve seen more athleisure concepts open. We had a strong opening from Alo Yoga, you’re going to see potential expansion of Arc’teryx. We’ve got a repositioning. The Gap is going to move within the asset and get right sized. We’ve transacted a deal to replace Moxie’s and we should be in position to announce that (soon). We’ve done a couple of jewellery deals and fashion accessories. We’ve got two deals with Lovisa in both Chinook and Market Mall. We’re also very close to putting the finishing touches on Miniso which is an Asian dollar store concept in Market Mall and we’re in negotiations in Chinook as well.”
What is he hearing about retailer Saks, which has a store in Chinook?
“There’s some warning signs about HBC and Saks. They’re not maintaining the vertical transportation in the stores. They’re not maintaining the heating and air conditioning in their stores. They’ve had issues with suppliers in terms of payment of suppliers. So they’ve got limited inventories in the stores heading into the critical fourth quarter,” said Schmidt.
“They’ve been alienating some of their third-party vendors who do shop in shops within the stores and we’ve been beneficiaries of that. We’ve been able to take some brands like Nespresso and Levi’s out of The Bay and place them into our shopping centres.
“Without speculating too much there’s a lot of warning signs as to the health of both brands.”
Cadillac Fairview sees good traction with quick casual food concepts
Schmidt said the Canadian market has experienced good traction with quick casual food concepts coming into the marketplace from the U.S. Chick-fil-a, Chipotle, Shake Shack.
“You’re going to see some really positive outcomes with those banners in the next 12 to 18 months. Quick casual food is strong. Athleisure is strong. We’re starting to see some better quality of women’s fashion concepts coming into the Calgary marketplace and that’s a function of the closure of Nordstrom,” he said.
“So I think it’s safe to say in the next 12 to 18 months you’re going to see the likes Reformation, Veronica Beard, Anine Bing. All would make the ladies of Calgary very happy. Health and beauty continues to really resonate. Sephora is performing at all-time highs. Kiokki opening at Chinook. There’s other Asian beauty concepts like Sukoshi that are looking in the market and some other Asian beauty concepts that are currently in Australia and the U.S. that are starting to sniff in the market. I don’t know what the saturation point is on that. We can only handle so much but health and beauty is still very, very strong.”
Schmidt said development potential for other real estate use on Market Mall is still in the entitlement process. Chinook went through that process years ago.
“So we’ve got the capability to add multi-family residential, add more office, even add more retail. We have to wait for the market to get to the point where the construction costs and the sales prices are right so we can put shovels in the ground and bring some of those towers out of the ground. It’s a little premature but all the pieces of the puzzle are there, it’s just a matter of the timing of the market,” he said.
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