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Sears Canada (1952-2017)

  • Thread starter CanadianNational
  • Start date
Skeezix said:
I'm not sure anyone is arguing against that. I'm certainly not. My point is quite unrelated.
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"The Eaton family built College Park in the late 1920s (opened in 1930 IIRC) as the first phase of a larger project including a tower, but they famously neglected to build the first phase in a manner that would support the weight of the tower."

Both AndreaPalladio and I are saying that the Great Depression did in the tower, not anything structural. There is a fair bit in the McQueen book about College Park... and indeed it signalled, in my opinion, Eaton's Long Goodbye... but structurally the Eaton's store was built as is. The tower, which would be crazily cost prohibitive today, was killed by the depression.
 
ShonTron said:
I agree. There were never serious plans to build the tower after the Depression hit. 777 Bay and the College Park Apartments slab ended up becoming the legacy of that tower (transfer of density rights).
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Not sure why people keep referring to obvious fact about the Depression. Has anyone disagreed with this or suggested it wasn't true?
 
pw20 said:
"The Eaton family built College Park in the late 1920s (opened in 1930 IIRC) as the first phase of a larger project including a tower, but they famously neglected to build the first phase in a manner that would support the weight of the tower."

Both AndreaPalladio and I are saying that the Great Depression did in the tower, not anything structural. There is a fair bit in the McQueen book about College Park... and indeed it signalled, in my opinion, Eaton's Long Goodbye... but structurally the Eaton's store was built as is. The tower, which would be crazily cost prohibitive today, was killed by the depression.
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Okay, but nobody is arguing with you. Nobody has suggested otherwise. It's as if everyone were rushing to express agreement with the sentiment that the sky is blue. It's obviously fair comment, but I am just puzzled by the suggestion that it's a counterpoint to what I said. I actually said nothing about what killed the project.
 
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What I really find interesting is that the College Street store was also the result of the Eatons believing that Yonge and College would eventually become the commercial heart of the city, which is why they assembled so much land up there - the Carlton Street realignment to meet College and Maple Leaf Gardens were both built on land assembled by the Eatons. They even offered land to Simpson's to move up with them.

The Eaton Tower plans remind me a bit of the Fisher Building in New Center, Detroit. New Center was the same idea - that downtown congestion demanded a new commercial centre for the city and that activity would migrate north. In Toronto, it didn't really - the financial centre remained south of Queen and so did a lot of the shopping. (Though Bloor-Yorkville emerged.) Of course in Detroit, activity did migrate north, but skipped New Center entirely and ended up in Oakland County!
 
What's unfortunate is that Sears will maintain its head office on the upper floors of the store. Which isn't surprising, since apparently they enjoy a sweetheart deal under the old Eaton's lease. Those upper floors were unlikely to be retail anyway. But it might constrain Cadillac's ability to do something remarkable with the overall space. Time will tell, I suppose.
 
Skeezix said:
What's unfortunate is that Sears will maintain its head office on the upper floors of the store. Which isn't surprising, since apparently they enjoy a sweetheart deal under the old Eaton's lease. Those upper floors were unlikely to be retail anyway. But it might constrain Cadillac's ability to do something remarkable with the overall space. Time will tell, I suppose.
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I'd be surprised if they continued to need 4 floors of office space for much longer.
 
There are 7 floors from the main level upwards. I haven't been upstairs at that store in ages, given it is such a dump, so I've lost track of how many floors they have progressively closed (originally Sears closed off the 7th floor when they opened "eatons", and then they closed 6, and I forget how many floors they closed when they moved the head office there). I'm surprised, though, that they use/need/want four floors.
 
Likely scenario: CF convinces Sears to move their offices into 1-2 floors of a nearby office building (no idea what the vacancy rates are for Eaton Centre office towers) - probably with good lease terms (I think they're paying $1 on the rent?! - if someone could confirm if this goes to their HQ floors as well).

CF will likely want the full suite of floors for a potential redevelopment. 800k sqf is way too big for an anchor these days.
 
Filip said:
Likely scenario: CF convinces Sears to move their offices into 1-2 floors of a nearby office building (no idea what the vacancy rates are for Eaton Centre office towers) - probably with good lease terms
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I'm not sure that CF would necessarily consider that a good deal, especially since the upper floors of the old Eaton's store are of limited use to Cadillac anyway (the lower portion of the Sears HQ is probably more useful to Cadillac). It would be great trade for Sears, getting office space in an actual office building, rather than the jerry-rigged space they are using now. Maybe someone here who is familiar with commercial leasing would have some insight.

since Sears is currently using (I think they're paying $1 on the rent?! - if someone could confirm if this goes to their HQ floors as well).
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Not sure why it wouldn't apply to the space they are currently using for their offices. It's the original Eaton's lease, which presumably applies to the whole. If it didn't apply, I am not sure why Sears would be keeping its office at this location - the only reason to do so, given the state of the company and the fact that they are selling off all the family china, is if it's cheap space.

CF will likely want the full suite of floors for a potential redevelopment. 800k sqf is way too big for an anchor these days.
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Agreed. I don't imagine the newly-freed space will all go to one tenant.
 
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