Ten years after its launch on July 9, 2015, the McArthurGlen Outlet Vancouver is bustling with shoppers, and its executives say they plan to expand the region’s only outlet centre.
It is a testament that retail success can come when developers target a clear niche and there is unmet demand in the market.
“We're working through permitting and some leasing right now, and we'll have an opening date announcement of Phase 3 in the next couple of months,” said Robert Thurlow, general manager of what is largely a mall with tenants that sell off-price merchandise.
His expected 63,000-square-foot expansion would enlarge the Richmond mall to approximately 387,000 square feet of leasable space. An expansion has been in the works for years.
The mall was a success from day one.
Mall executives back then counted about 160,000 shoppers in the mall’s first four days, and traffic jams on roads leading to the complex disrupted vehicle flow for those heading to the nearby Vancouver International Airport.
Months later it won an award for being the world's best outlet centre.
The mall initially had about 240,000 square feet of leasable space, of which 156,000 square feet was leased on opening day. Within three years, the mall had filled about 96 per cent of that space with tenants, Thurlow told BIV.
An 84,000-square-foot Phase 2 expansion opened toward the southeast in 2019, and Thurlow said Phase 3 is set to add another 63,000 square feet to the northeast of the original mall footprint.
Fueling the expansion is retail success.
Thurlow pinned the mall retailers’ average annual sales per square foot at about $1,350.
The mall does not take part in the International Council of Shopping Centers’ (ICSC) annual ranking of Canadian shopping centres by that metric.
If it had done so, it would have last year ranked No. 5 in Canada, and No. 3 in B.C., behind CF Pacific Centre’s $1,454 per square foot, and CF Richmond Centre’s $1,359 per square foot on the ICSC rankings.
“McArthurGlen is an extremely well-performing shopping centre,” Retail Insider owner and consultant Craig Patterson told BIV.
“It's got a value proposition to it. It's a mall that has stores that are known to have lower prices, and it has got a compelling mix of brands. People will line up for certain brands that are on sale, and McArthurGlen has a good number of those brands.”
The mall’s largest retail tenant is Ralph Lauren, which leases about 20,000 square feet, according to Thurlow.
That location is Ralph Lauren’s first outlet location in Metro Vancouver, he said. The clothing chain has had other full-price stores in the region but never a store that carried off-price merchandise such as out-of-season clothing or products specifically made for an outlet store, according to Thurlow.
Brands that opened their first-ever store in the region – full price or outlet – at the McArthurGlen Outlet Vancouver Airport mall include Under Armour, Zwilling and Karl Lagerfeld, Thurlow said.
The first Marc Jacobs outlet store in Western Canada opened at the mall earlier this year, he added.
His mall caters to a wide range of tastes and price ranges, with Versace being a luxury store that has its only store in Metro Vancouver at the mall.
To mark the 10th anniversary, the mall has encouraged tenants to offer special discounts. Mall management has also arranged for live music, special events and contests with prizes, such as a round-trip Helijet excursion to Victoria to stay two nights at the Fairmont Empress hotel.
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