Hudson's Bay Company

[matrix]

Bay-branded parkade stairwell at Sherway feat. late November snow pile. Always found it weird there was a sign here... wanted a flick before this gets taken down sooner or later with the Sherway lease being back in CF's hands

 

[matrix]

For anyone here who still had a bit of faith in Ruby and her ideas:

How Ruby Liu’s contentious play for Hudson’s Bay stores fell apart

The B.C. billionaire’s team has portrayed her as a rags-to-riches business savant who would ‘save Canadian retail.’ But her opponents tell a story of an ill-conceived plan that was bound to fail

www.theglobeandmail.com

Un-paywalled: https://archive.ph/IHWL5

 

[matrix]

The first Hudson's Bay replacement has been revealed... Oakville Place will be putting Nations Experience in the old Bay box. Construction begins in 2026, opening in 2027.

Nations Experience to Open in Former Hudson’s Bay in Oakville

Nations Experience has leased the entire former Hudson’s Bay at Oakville Place with plans for a flagship grocer and Forever Young entertainment venue.

retail-insider.com

Surprisingly they have been discussing this since last December. RioCan definitely knew the writing was on the wall, being in a partnership with HBC...

As someone from Oakville... I'm not a fan of Oakville Place, it's a real small mall with some confusing lease decisions- but I will hand it to them, this is not the worst idea ever. It's a bit of a wacky idea (grocery store with family entertainment element) but it has legs, being a proven concept at The Stockyards. And apparently Oakville matches the demographic very well, so RioCan finally used their brains for something worthwhile. People around here are probably gonna love this, but part of me wishes they split the box up. Maybe one day we'll get a full-sized Indigo... I can only dream.

It will be interesting to see what the other landlords have in store for these leases when they get returned back to them later this month.

 

[DSCToronto]

Westons, Thomsons to team up for $18M bid on historic Hudson’s Bay charter

Hudson's Bay plans to ask a court next week for permission to auction off the charter.

www.thestar.com

 

[matrix]

Westons, Thomsons to team up for $18M bid on historic Hudson’s Bay charter

Hudson's Bay plans to ask a court next week for permission to auction off the charter.

www.thestar.com

You know, I don't think super highly of the Westons, but credit where credit is due, even they realize this belongs in a museum instead of in the hands of a private collector. Hopefully that bid goes through.

 

[nightstreak]

For anyone here who still had a bit of faith in Ruby and her ideas:

How Ruby Liu’s contentious play for Hudson’s Bay stores fell apart

The B.C. billionaire’s team has portrayed her as a rags-to-riches business savant who would ‘save Canadian retail.’ But her opponents tell a story of an ill-conceived plan that was bound to fail

www.theglobeandmail.com

Un-paywalled: https://archive.ph/IHWL5

Terrible look for Retail Insider. I did find their overly effusive insider-sounding stories feeling like sponsored articles without the disclosure. Yikes.

 

[Northern Light]

Terrible look for Retail Insider. I did find their overly effusive insider-sounding stories feeling like sponsored articles without the disclosure. Yikes.

I'll disagree.

Not that its a great look as such, I don't think anyone would make that argument.

But R-I is a trade paper, its not an investigative journalism organization as such.

The very title of the site implies that it trades on inside info, like all trades, it is often a hype machine.

Which is what R-I was doing early on, it was providing the press release/hype etc. that the prospective retailer was providing.

This story reveals, in part, the extent to which many credible names had brief, tangential relationships with Ruby.

Ruby traded on their credibility, paid them some money, to do something small'ish, while claiming that each was part of much larger team, leaving the superficial impression of a grand strategy/effort.

For each of those names, their affiliation with Ruby, such as it was, will probably not be something they put on the CV in their future. But for the most part, each was brought in, to what at first, seemed like it might be a credible venture.

Its only on further examination that reasonable questions did or should have arisen.

 

[matrix]

Ruby traded on their credibility, paid them some money, to do something small'ish, while claiming that each was part of much larger team, leaving the superficial impression of a grand strategy/effort.

For each of those names, their affiliation with Ruby, such as it was, will probably not be something they put on the CV in their future. But for the most part, each was brought in, to what at first, seemed like it might be a credible venture.

Yeah they're victims here as well. They were sold a vision they had no way of knowing was legit or not. If I were RI I would probably be excited too if Ruby came to me and detailed a plan like that.

 

[Tormick]

Terrible look for Retail Insider. I did find their overly effusive insider-sounding stories feeling like sponsored articles without the disclosure. Yikes.

Yeah - I thought the same thing. They definitely were in Ruby's pocket or getting kick backs.

A ton of positive PR - not a good look for RI. Definitely makes us look at their reporting differently

 

[ShonTron]

You don’t say.

Fairweather too ‘downmarket,’ unsuitable to take over HBC space in Yorkdale: Oxford

TORONTO - Real estate firm Oxford is fighting to keep Fairweather Ltd. from reviving the defunct Les Ailes de la Mode department store at Yorkdale Shopping Centre.

www.thestar.com

 

[matrix]

You don’t say.

Fairweather too ‘downmarket,’ unsuitable to take over HBC space in Yorkdale: Oxford

TORONTO - Real estate firm Oxford is fighting to keep Fairweather Ltd. from reviving the defunct Les Ailes de la Mode department store at Yorkdale Shopping Centre.

www.thestar.com

While Fairweather has leased other Oxford properties for the brand as well as Wyrth and International Clothiers, Oxford said it’s been steadily reducing the presence of all Fairweather brands within Yorkdale for the past 15 years, and within the remainder of its malls over the last five years.

I didn't want to editorialize when this news first came out but it's been pretty evident Oxford has less and less to want to do with Fairweather as time goes on. Square One used to have International Clothiers and Fairweather/Stockhomme, but within the past year, they gave them the boot- Bluenotes replaced IC and JD Sports replaced the Fairweather space in Square One. It really goes to show how much they don't want this.

Still insane to me how RioCan of all people has the gall to threaten Yorkdale's look like that. I'm no luxury shopper but even I think Yorkdale deserves a better anchor than that.

 

[matrix]

Bye bye...

 

[ShonTron]

View attachment 697071View attachment 697072
Bye bye...

Is that Sherway Gardens?

 

[matrix]

Is that Sherway Gardens?

Yes. They were taking the signs down today. I saw an aerial lift near the Cactus Club parkade and they took the sign down from the small parkade entrance I snapped a picture of a week ago (very good timing). Label scars galore. I could imagine CF is very happy to take those signs down on their own recognizance and not Ruby's, haha.

A probably useless note: the Saks Off Fifth on the Queensway (yeah I know it's not CF) and the Saks Fifth Avenue signs have been long gone for quite some time. Additionally, there's now a huge wall where the interior Saks Fifth mall entrance was that shows some Italian architecture, and it's set up as extra seating for Eataly with tables and chairs (titled "The Piazza" on the mall map). I guess they were able to touch those leases in the meantime? The Bay's logo inside the mall is still up and glowing for what that's worth, but they're probably getting to that soon. I would expect The Bay's interior entrance will be walled off as well.

I haven't been around as much, but this was the first time I've seen that logo being removed from a former Bay property. Oakville Place is still untouched. I would imagine there's more to come.

 

[matrix]

Also, I'll add this; I'm excited to see what CF is going to do with Sherway now that they have three empty anchor boxes. It's also a little worrying because it's not like they can put a Simons (too close to Square One) or Holt's (moved from Sherway to Square One). I think letting the Ontario Science Centre have a space in the Nordstrom box was a pretty nice idea. But that area on the Queensway and North Queen has so much retail, it's gonna be a bit hard to find new tenants to fill the department store shoes. The SmartCentres and other leaseholds already have so much, and Sherway had already lost SportChek to SmartCentres last year.

All the landlords gotta get creative but I feel like this is different... Just some late night food for thought....