Pacific Centres owner expects the downtown Vancouver malls 44,000-square-foot retail expansion to be full when both it and a 230,000-square-foot Nordstrom department store open in spring 2015.
This despite no leases having yet been finalized.
Nordstrom will occupy three floors of the former Sears building each slightly more than 73,000 square feet. Those floors are the street level and floors two and three. Four above floors will house office tenants and a basement level is being transformed into an expanded Pacific Centre.
We expect there to be between 10 and 14 new retailers on the concourse level of the expanded Pacific Centre, Cadillac Fairview senior vice-president and portfolio manager for Western Canada Tom Knoepfel says. For many of those retailers, this will be their first store in Vancouver.
An escalator is expected to rise out of the concourse to the corner of Granville and Robson streets.
Some retail observers have speculated that a future underground link could be built between Pacific Centre and Fairmont Hotel Vancouver by tunnelling under the front lawn of the Vancouver Art Gallery.
Ivanhoe Cambridge has been remaking the retail component at the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver and is expected to soon welcome fashion retailers such as Christian Dior.
Knoepfel said no such link has been contemplated.
Electric car maker Tesla has leased space to open its second Canadian showroom in April in a 1,500-square-foot space formerly occupied by an H20+ skin-care boutique, between Burrard and Hornby streets. Tesla opened its first Canadian showroom in Torontos posh Yorkdale Mall last year.
By being in high-traffic areas, were able to pique the interest of people, Tesla spokesman Patrick Jones told Business in Vancouver. That launches us into a whole sales strategy which is more about educating consumers about electric vehicles rather than pushing a product on them.
Sales have consistently exceeded estimates, helping its share price more than triple this year despite a recent controversy about its batteries catching fire and complaints about glitches.
They will sell cars, but the Robson Street location is really meant to showcase their brand, said Dig360 Consulting retail analyst David Gray. Victorias Secret is doing the same thing, although you can pay your rent a lot faster by selling a few Tesla cars than you can by selling bras.
Tesla cars range in price from about $74,000 up to more than $133,000.
Lululemon, meanwhile, plans to build a flagship store across the street from the 30,000-square-foot, four-month-old Victorias Secret and the future Tesla store.
The yoga-wear giant has applied for a building permit for a site on the southeast corner of Burrard and Robson streets, where there is a Blenz coffee shop. The store will also include some of the empty space formerly occupied by New Balance.
More change will soon come on the southwest corner of Robson and Burrard streets, where female fashion retailer Bebe has opted not to renew its lease.
The Bebe site is really the big story, said CBRE senior vice-president Mario Negris. Here we have one of the highest-profile locations on the street and all of a sudden its vacant.
These stories first appeared in Business in Vancouver.
