The Hudson Bay Company’s off-price division Saks OFF 5TH has announced the opening dates of its next five Canadian stores, all opening between March and May of this year. When all five are open, the company will have opened 14 Saks OFF 5TH’s in Canada — a remarkable feat, considering that its first stores opened less than a year ago.
As discussed in an article last week, Saks OFF 5TH entered Canada in March of 2016 with four locations. The first four OFF 5TH’s opened at Vaugan Mills and Toronto Premium Outlets in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), as well as at Outlet Collection at Niagara and at Tanger Outlets Ottawa. Locations that have since opened include an Ottawa store on the lower level of Hudson’s Bay Rideau Street, at CrossIron Mills in Calgary, at South Edmonton Common in Edmonton, at Tsawwassen Mills near Vancouver, and a freestanding Toronto location across from CF Sherway Gardens.
Saks has just announced that it will open five Canadian stores this spring. Two will be in the GTA, one in Quebec City, one in Winnipeg, as well as a second Edmonton store.
On March 9, Saks OFF 5TH will open two suburban Toronto stores — one at Pickering Town Centre in Pickering, measuring 30,000 square feet, as well as another at Bramalea City Centre in Brampton, with about 28,000 square feet of retail space. Both stores will be the first Saks OFF 5TH locations in Canada to open in traditional shopping malls, as opposed to outlet/hybrid outlet centres.
On April 6 of this year, Saks OFF 5TH will open two more Canadian stores — a 33,000 square foot store at Place Ste-Foy in Quebec City, as well as a second Edmonton location, spanning about 30,000 square feet at the Skyview Power Centre in the city’s northwest side. The Place Ste-Foy store is located in retail space once occupied by Holt Renfrew, in the upscale Quebec City shopping mall that is anchored by the flagship location for La Maison Simons.
On May 3 of this year, Saks OFF 5TH will open its first Winnipeg location at the highly anticipated Outlet Collection Winnipeg. The 32,200 square foot OFF 5TH store will join a number of popular retailers in the new centre, which will be the first pure designer outlet mall in Manitoba, and the second in Western Canada (we’re excluding CrossIron Mills and Tsawwassen Mills, both classified as ‘hybrid’ outlet centres). We’ll follow up with details on Outlet Collection Winnipeg in an article, closer to its opening date.
Parent company Hudson’s Bay Company has said that it will open approximately 25 Saks OFF 5TH locations in Canada before the end of 2018. Other locations confirmed to be opening include one at West Vancouver’s Park Royal in the summer of 2017, as well as three in Montreal. A CF Galeries d’Anjou store is scheduled to open in the summer of 2017, and a downtown Montreal store (the largest in Canada at 44,840 square feet) will open in the fall of 2018. The company has also said that it will open a Saks OFF 5TH at Premium Outlets Montreal, though no definitive date has been provided.
Competitor Nordstrom Rack, operating under the Seattle-based Nordstrom umbrella, will compete fiercely with OFF 5TH when the former opens its first Canadian locations in early 2018. So far, Nordstrom Rack has confirmed five Canadian stores, including locations in Toronto at 1 Bloor Street East, Vaughan Mills, at Calgary’s Deerfoot Meadows, at Edmonton’s South Edmonton Common, and at Ottawa Train Yards in Ottawa. Nordstrom has said that it plans to open at least 15 Nordstrom Rack locations in Canada, and potentially more if opportunities become available.
Competitor TJX, operating Winners and Marshalls in Canada, also continues to rapidly open stores nationwide.
*Renderings are via Martin Roberts Design.
