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The Bay Queen St. Restoration?

It comes down to economics. Retailing comes down to how much money you can make per sq ft. Giant dept stores are no longer economically viable on their own in downtown Toronto. Now if he can partner with a developer and slap a 50s+ condo, keep the facade with ground floor retailing, that might work. I suspect the folks at Loblaws, once they realize the cost to convert MLG into retail does not make economic sense, will probably want to do the same thing at MLG. Partner with a developer, build with condo's facing Wood St and retail along Carlton, while keeping the facade in place. The only caveat, The Historical Board will probably reject it and nothing will get done and these hulks will be vacant for a long time.
 
Ken Thomson's art gallery on the ninth floor was delightful, though it didn't attract huge numbers of visitors. There was a good collection of 19th century art ( Krieghoff, Kane, Paul Peel ), scads of Group of Seven, Tom Thomson, David Milne, Emily Carr and J.W. Morrice.
 
Isn't that the collection that was donated to the AGO?

The Bay - Maybe if they offered better service, a nicer and more interesting environment, and better merchandise, they'd do okay? There's pretty much no competition.
 
"It comes down to economics. Retailing comes down to how much money you can make per sq ft. Giant dept stores are no longer economically viable on their own in downtown Toronto."

Why not?
 
Probably depends on whether a store owns or leases its space, which impacts a store's operating expenses.

A number of stores that have gone under had sold their properties to maximize the use of their capital locked up in its real estate portfolio (i.e. to fund store renovations), with leases back from the purchaser - that may have placed a bigger burden on operating revenues to pay the costs.
 
At the very least, they could clean up the exterior façade and capitalize on their building as a trademark like Harrods and even CHUM (Queen st).
It's a beautiful building that needs to be restored.

I like the museum idea, but they don't need an entire floor for that. They could use the 9th floor gallery left vacant by the Thompson pieces heading to the AGO.

Better service? You bet. Department stores need to be about experience shopping. Otherwise, why not go to Walmart where you'll receive equally bad service but at least pay less for what you're there to buy?
 
Is "experience shopping" anything like "shopping", or are they completely unrelated?
 
"It comes down to economics. Retailing comes down to how much money you can make per sq ft. Giant dept stores are no longer economically viable on their own in downtown Toronto."

Why not?
Click to expand...

We have three downtown (2 Bays, 1 Sears) plus Holts. They may not be thriving but I haven't heard any talk of them closing.
 
The arrival of new retailers to downtown will pull more shoppers away from giant department stores. They were handy when choice was limited and you could find everything under one roof.
Twenty years ago it was a given you go to Sears for appliances, not now. Looking for new styles in men's clothing, head to The Bay or Eaton's, not anymore. Remember looking for a new couch, go to Sears or The Bay, no way. Ask yourself, when was the last time you perused the aisles of a department store for those items. They have outlived their usefulness and the real estate they sit on offer a much better return than the most rosy revenue expectation.
 
Fancy department stores in great international cities are increasingly for tourists (just look at KaDeWe in Berlin, Galleries Lafayette in Paris or Harrod's in London) - if tourism in Toronto doesn't dramatically improve over the next few years, these large downtown department stores will continue to suffer. As billonlogan stated - shopping patterns and trends have changed and local Torontonians just don't spend their money at The Bay or Sears like they used to.
 
Fancy department stores in great international cities are increasingly for tourists (just look at KaDeWe in Berlin, Galleries Lafayette in Paris or Harrod's in London)
Click to expand...
Methinks that's also why the Bay's been aggressively pushing the "point blanket heritage" angle. (And also why it cornered the Olympic contract this year.)
 
"They have outlived their usefulness and the real estate they sit on offer a much better return than the most rosy revenue expectation."

I would understand this better if this were the case elsewhere, but I've seen far smaller urban centres that have numerous large department stores. Or how about similar sized cities? How many does Montreal have? Chicago?? Toronto is a huge commercial centre, and I find it hard to believe that it cannot sustain more than what it currently has. I suspect that aside from Holts, which does seem to do well, the issue is the quality of the stores in question, not whether the Toronto market can support them. It is just not that exciting to travel downtown to a messy and understaffed Bay Store or to Sears, especially when you can travel to the local mall for the same thing.
 
The facades of the Yonge + Queen store look incredible now at night with the giant new television screens covering the old windows!
 
Actually the light show is not "new television screens" but appear to be fine LED lights simply strung across a fine square frame. This is perfect as its probably invisible during the day and does not block the historic facade of the building (you can even see through the string of lights at night while its functioning).
 
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