Real estate activity is picking up at Calgary’s CF Market Mall and CF Chinook Centre, with a number of new leases, retailer expansions and first-to-market brands set to open in the months ahead, a senior executive with Cadillac Fairview says.
Darryl Schmidt, Vice-President, National Leasing, said demand for space at both shopping centres has strengthened to start the year, with multiple retailers under construction, major brands returning or expanding, and strong interest in former Hudson’s Bay Co. spaces.
While some large-box negotiations remain fluid, Schmidt said leasing momentum across the portfolio has picked up, driven largely by retail rather than entertainment or non-retail uses.
Schmidt said a recent deal was made with Samsung for Market Mall.
“They’re coming back into the marketplace, and that’ll open later this spring. And then you’ll see a repositioning. La Vie en Rose is expanding. It’s going to double in size further down the fashion run,” he said.
“Ever New has a pop-up. They’re under construction across from Mark’s and will open in March. We’ve got Kit + Ace opening a new store.
“Just prior to the holidays, Arc’teryx expanded and SoftMoc relocated in position with the new prototype store, a 4,500-square-foot store. They’re really excited about the productivity that we’re seeing after the holidays. And then it allowed them to expand into a deeper and broader number of product lines.”
As for the empty former Bay space, Schmidt said “there are a lot of balls in the air.”
“The good news is we’ve got a lot of demand for all of the HBC boxes. The challenge is that there are just too many brands at the table and trying to sort through the highest and best use. They’re just fluid environments where you’re trying to negotiate highest and best uses for each of the boxes, and new brands introduce themselves. It’s challenging to stay focused and lock down what the best brands are going to be,” he said.
“There are no single users in the market branding the boxes. They’re all going to get demised up. So you just have to figure out who’s going to be the best fit for each of the assets. Which brands are most on brand for our market from a price point standpoint.
“The good news is it’s virtually all retail. There might be some fitness in some of the boxes, but we’ve got such strong retail demand, which is a good fit. We’d rather have that than entertainment.”
At Chinook Centre, Wingstop and Shake Shack are expected to be open by later in the spring.
“Chipotle should go under construction in the next couple of months. And then you’re going to see, in the old Shoppers Drug Mart, Abercrombie & Fitch is coming back into the centre, and they’ll get possession in the next 60 days. So that’s exciting,” explained Schmidt.
“Shoppers relocated to the extreme south end of the shopping centre” where Old Navy used to be.
There are discussions to bring Old Navy back into the shopping centre. The Gap also relocated last year.
“And then just near The Gap and where the new Ray-Ban store opened, we concluded a deal with The North Face. That will be in the first one in the city, free-standing store. We’ve got a number of leases with some first-to-market retailers. I was hoping to get them done before the end of the holidays, but things drag. So we should be able to announce a couple more that’ll be new to the market, like The North Face, which is pretty significant.”
Like Market Mall, Chinook Centre also has the empty former Bay space to deal with as well as big box space formerly occupied by Saks.
“It’s really fluid. It’s constantly changing. There’s good demand on all the boxes. Conversations have come and gone . . . It’s just that cutting deals with those bigger users takes more time. It’s more complicated, and there’s just a lot on the table. I mean, just coast to coast. A lot of the brands that we’re in discussions with are in discussions on other HBC boxes in other markets across the country. So getting everybody focused and getting to the finish line is a challenge.”
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I am surprised that we don’t see Muji making a move to Calgary. They are big in Toronto and Vancouver, yet we have nothing here. Also, Simons has two stores in Edmonton, yet Calgary has only the cut-up location in the Core.
i second this. i’d love to have muji in ab. this way i dont have to go to yvr. i think they are being cautious tho. they closed all their california operations few years ago and remain only open in the northeast usa. they also closed guildford muji recently too.