In 2017, CF Polo Park continued to be one of the top malls in Canada based on sale poor square footage. As expected, Toronto took the top spot along with a few Vancouver malls rounding out the top 3. However, Winnipeg’s largest mall came in at number 14 in the listings.
In other categories such as total square footage and most pedestrian traffic, none of Winnipeg’s malls ranked in the top 10. Surprisingly, Garden City Shopping Centre had higher sales per square footage than St. Vital Centre. On the face of it, St. Vital has more retailers but obviously more does not equal higher sales.
There were no figures for the Outlet Collection Mall as it just opened this year.
The top four Winnipeg malls will all be dealing with the closure of Sears much like much of Canada. For malls like Polo Park, it represents an opportunity to land Nordstrom’s or Simon’s. The fully leasing of Polo Park’s off campus building in the former Target takes that property off their books. HomeSense/Winners, 24-7 In Touch Call Centre and Cineplex’s Odeon’s Rec Centre moving in.
It will be interesting to see how replacing Sears in the top malls will affect sales. For some malls who saw Sears leave early on in their woes a few years ago, the sales jumped considerably.
The Retail Council of Canada which conducted the study indicates the Winnipeg has less retail than Alberta but more than Greater Vancouver. It will be interesting to see where the latest building of retails puts the city on the listing next year.
It is believed that CF Polo Park is looking at a major upgrade being announced soon with the redevelopment of Sears. Sometimes it is lost in the haze of the redevelopment of the old Zellers on the second floor that the mall has had the same decor for some time. It is going to be quite a whirl because four city malls will be in a race to fill their empty Sears space this year.
This has been a editorial by John Dobbin.
To read more from John, visit his blog Observations, Reservations, Conversations
