Hudson’s Bay Company management has confirmed that renovations to the Vancouver, BC flagship store are expected to surpass $40 million. This will be Canada’s first fully-renovated Bay flagship store, with sales expected to surpass those of the Toronto Queen Street and Montreal flagships.
Construction cost estimates had originally been set at about $24 million, and the increased expense estimate is for three reasons: 1) An increased cost to fix a leak situation in the basement/sub basement on the Seymour Street side of the building, 2) The addition of a new, “un-named” retailer to the existing building structure and 3) Increased expenditures on a new menswear floor.
Vancouver’s largest menswear store will be located on the 6th floor and at 70,500 square feet, will dwarf competitors Harry Rosen and Holt Renfrew, each with about 25,000 square feet of selling space. The new men’s floor will include a men’s designer boutique with a skylight, formerly the Georgian Restaurant from the 1930’s. Below is a photo of the restaurant, though we’re not able to locate a photo of the skylight portion (in the right of the photo) that will be directly above the department.
The new men’s floor will also include various upscale designers in its department The West End Shop, including Zegna Sport, Z Zegna, Eton, Hugo Boss, Strellson, Porsche Design, Buggati, and several others that we will keep secret and announce closer to the October 15th 2012 opening date.
A younger, hip department called ‘Men’s White Space’ will be located under the skylight on the men’s floor, including such designers as Opening Ceremony, Armani Jeans, Band of Outsiders, Filipa K, DRKSHDW Rick Owens, C.P. Company, A.P.C., Burkman Bros., Robert Geller Seconds, Spurr, Save Khaki, Steven Alan, Surface-to-Air, and others.
The Bay is also in negotiations to bring Burberry to the Vancouver store, including a Burberry accessories boutique on the ground floor, a Burberry women’s shop on the 2nd floor, and Burberry on the new 6th-floor men’s store.
Negotiations are also underway to poach Michael Kors from its Pacific Centre location and move the concession into The Bay. If negotiations are successful, Kors would sublease their street-front Georgia Street store and pay little-to-no rent within The Bay’s flagship.
The store’s exterior will include black, HBC crested awnings over entryways, and glass weather protection over the store’s display windows. Awnings will look like the render below:
As confirmed previously, TopShop/TopMan will construct a 33,000 square foot space in the former men’s basement floor at the Flagship. A food store will be located in the sub-basement, while about 65,000 square feet of the basement and sub-basement are for lease under the potential name ‘The Hudson’s Bay Centre’, as per the rendering below:
Stay tuned for the “mystery retailer” that will occupy a substantial part of this 637,000 square foot building.
Hudson’s Bay Company website: www.thebay.com
