Polo Park is the hands down biggest and most popular mall in Winnipeg. None compares in size in the province. But how does it stack up nation-wide?
Well, according to latest figures quite high.
- Pacific Centre, Vancouver, BC: $1,498
- Toronto Eaton Centre, Toronto, ON: $1,420
- Oakridge Shopping Centre, Vancouver, BC: $1,395
- Yorkdale Shopping Centre, Toronto, ON: $1,356
- Southgate Shopping Centre, Edmonton, AB: $1,157
- Chinook Centre, Calgary, AB: $1,125
- Rideau Centre, Ottawa, ON: $1,008
- Holt Renfrew Centre, Toronto, ON: “over $1,000” says landlord.
- Market Mall, Calgary, AB: $942
- Sherway Gardens, Toronto, ON: $935
- Square One, Mississauga, ON: $910
- Metropolis at Metrotown, Burnaby, BC: $886
- Polo Park, Winnipeg, MB: $873
- Peter Pond Mall, Ft. McMurray, AB: $870
- Le Carrefour Laval, Laval, QC: $865
- Fairview Mall, Toronto, ON: $843
- Richmond Centre, Richmond, BC: $833
- Royal Bank Plaza, Toronto ON: $820
- Toronto Dominion Centre, Toronto, ON: $818
- Bayview Village, Toronto, ON: $810
Most of the above malls have done multimillion renovations to enhance sales per square footage including Polo Park that is still putting the finishing touches on the second floor improvements within the old Zellers location.
The exclusive stores for certain malls really helps the bottom line. For example, Polo Park having the only Apple store is enormous. Many Apple stores in Canada rack up $50 million is sales with only 5000 square feet!
Sears continues to drag down sales in many malls across Canada including Polo Park. Can the big retailer turn things around? Hard to say. However, it is very likely if they don’t there are many who would gladly take over the space or at least part of it.
It would be interesting to see where St. Vital Mall stands in all of this. I suspect that it has too many stores with far lower sales volumes to ever challenge Polo Park. It has also has less room for growth unless they ever take possession of the Sears store or a few other parts of the building. One has to wonder if 20 plus stores in the Sears space would be better for that mall.
What is next for Polo Park? Well, fill the last spaces and shuffling a few more retailers around and come the next months perhaps the biggest sales in the mall’s history now that renovations are nearly done. The only big question? Is Sears going to be part of those plans?
This has been a guest editorial by John Dobbin.
To read more from John, visit his blog Observations, Reservations, Conversations.
