Unicity Smart Complex in St. James

In 1975 Unicity Fashion Square opened at the end of the city. St. James was still building homes at this time and there were few enclosed malls in the city such as Garden City, Polo Park and Grant Park. Success seemed very likely. With Woolco and The Bay, they had some solid anchors. On opening, they drew good crowds and thereafter but always had a stubborn wing of the mall that had stores come and go. 

Within five years Unicity faced competition from all corners of the city as several malls opened up such as St. Vital Centre, Kildonan and Eaton Place and Winnipeg Square among others.

In 1994 Woolco was taken over by Walmart but this did not help Unicity as the mall was nearly half empty by this point. At the risk of losing Walmart altogether, Unicity Fashion Square was bulldozed in favour of a Smart Centre of big boxes anchored by Walmart. 

Of the original stores in Unicity, the only ones from 1975 remaining at the location are Shopper's Drug Mart, Reitman's and McDonald's. 

The lineup up those first stores is listed above.

Pictures from the Winnipeg Tribune Archives 1975, University of Manitoba.

The old anchors for Unicity were Woolco, The Bay and Dominion. The new anchors are Walmart, Canadian Tire, Sobey's and a solid lineup of Winners, Mark's, Dollar Tree, Valu Village, Staples, Sport Chek and others.

Unicity isn't a particularly attractive. The rules on greening their lot were fairly weak in 2000. As far as successful goes, it is generally fully leased compared to old Unicity Fashion Square.

I have been in a few Dollar Trees but find Dollarama to be better.

Winnipeg has a lot of thrift stores but Valu Village are fairly big.

Most of Unicity is wide parking lots and very little landscape.

I expect at some point Unicity, like a lot of malls, will be approach the city for zoning for housing. They should be forced to green up their property when that happens.

The retail landscape is changing everywhere and big parking spots like this are spots for future mixed development.

Forever 21 to Close All Stores in Canada

The first store opened in Winnipeg in 2011 at Polo Park. It was a massive 34,000 square feet and crowds lined up at 2 AM to go inside. It was joined by Forever 21 Red at Outlet Collection of Winnipeg at Seasons of Tuxedo in 2017. That store was 26,000 square feet.

Now all 44 stores in Canada will close as the U.S. struggles into bankruptcy. No word on how the Canadian stores were doing but it would not be the first times stores were closed in Canada to save the U.S. stores. Hello, Sears.

For Polo Park this represents a major blow. Both Kildonan Place and St. Vital Mall are going through multi-million developments to fill the Sears closures and re-fresh the malls. Garden City has already addressed their Sears problem and malls like Northgate have worked on the Zellers/Target closures.

Polo Park has done nothing yet and will go another Christmas without filling the spot of a major anchor. Now, another huge store is closing. Three malls in town have added fitness centers generally in the 30,000 square feet range. As far as Sears goes with its 300,000 square feet...who knows.

Retail as we know it is changing fast. Expect housing to go up in malls, on top of malls and on mall parking lots fast.

Bed Bath and Beyond in Grand Forks to Close Thanksgiving

Grand Forks and Fargo have to be wondering when it ends. One retailer after another is closing in their cities at a pace that is breathtaking. And now another has announced it will be closing in Grand Forks. Bed Bath and Beyond has given U.S. Thanksgiving in November as a timetable of its closure.

There will be 20 workers affected by the closure which has been blamed on a failure to renew a lease on land adjacent to Columbia Mall. Stores in Fargo and Bismarck will remain open. The store has been a fixture of Grand Forks and a favourite for Manitoba shopping for 18 years.

Trips by people to North Dakota and Minnesota the most recent long weekends have been greeted with shock at the devastating closures. They don't even come close to what has been happening in Canada.

It would appear that West Acres in Fargo and Columbia Mall in Grand Forks are trying to re-vitalize their malls with with so many store closures, it won't be retail that fills all the spaces.

Meanwhile in Winnipeg Grant Park, Northgate, Garden City and Kildonan Place have all gone through or are going through major upgrades that fill lost retail space from the last three years.

Three New Goodlife Fitness Locations for Winnipeg 2019/2020

Safe to say that Winnipeg is experiencing a building boom when it comes to fitness center across the city. The reasons for this vary but in part it can be explained as community centers not having nearly enough space or resources for a mature market of people wanting exercise centers. After graduating from schools and universities the choices for the adult fitness market are more often than not private fitness places. Moreover, how people keep fit can change as we age out of school and community sports like hockey, football and basketball. It is difficult to keep active with team sports due to work, family commitments or wear and tear.

Fitness is a solo thing save for joining group exercises such as yoga, cycling or dance/weight classes. We can still do our regular stuff such as swimming and biking, gardening and golfing but Canada is a winter country and daylight hours wane away so have created an infrastructure of indoor recreation facilities nation-wide.

Until recently you would really only be able to point to the Y as being the one true national fitness center. However, the Y kind of gives away its mission statement. It skews young and always will. It is a family friendly place and make no apologies for it. And over the years many of their facilities and services have upgraded and they do their job very well.

Goodlife, on the other hand, is a genuine Canadian coast to coast fitness center with a large presence in Winnipeg. That presence is about to get bigger. Goodlife is going to spend $30 million on two new clubs, relocation of one club and renovations on the rest. And by big, that means big. As reported already here on this blog, a 60,000 square foot club is going up on Bishop Grandin between Pembina Highway and Waverley along the north side. It will be double the size of Grant Park and Kenaston locations.

The Bishop Grandin location above will have a women's only section, a pool, a hot yoga studio and meditation space. The fitness center is scheduled to open in December. It would appear to be that it is in a race with the Altea fitness center which looks to be complete about the same time in the Bridgwater area on far south Kenaston. The Altea will be even larger and feature its own exclusive amenities. The continuing residential development and density building along Kenaston and now Bishop Grandin might generate the population to sustain the large facilities. In the case of Bridgwater, this growing area seems to have an anemic public recreation area so Altea might be only place for several years to come. As far as Bishop Grandin, the new bus rapid transit and high rises are right along the route the new Goodlife will stand on.

The Kenaston Goodlife is likely to benefit from a huge residential component in Kapyong and along Sterling Lyon while the Grant Park location is surrounded by apartments and is also adjacent to bus rapid transit. A lot of thought has gone into these multi-million dollar developments. Winnipeg is growing and the competition to serve the city means we are seeing some top notch building taking place.

Goodlife has indicated clubs in existence will be getting renovations. In this heavy competition, fitness centers will have to look to upgrade faster lest people look elsewhere. As far as other fitness centers like Shapes, Planet Fitness, Snap or Anytime Fitness, they will have to compete on price, location and amenities. Big won't always win the race. For those not in a car, the presence of a gym in a place such as the Osborne Village will be the choice they often make.

It is obvious Winnipeg has seen a dramatic increase in fitness centers across every geographic area but one area has been sadly lacking: St. Vital. The rumours have been true all along and Goodlife will be building in St. Vital Mall likely in the old Sears location. The location will be 27,000 square feet and be ready in spring on 2020.

The third new club will be at 330 Main Street in what people still call the Trizec building. It will be part of the residential/commercial component being building above Winnipeg Square and will be ready in summer of 2020. Once it is complete, the old Goodlife in what was the TD/Canwest building will be shut down. The new club will be about 24,000 square feet.

Once complete the new clubs will add about 200 jobs to the market.

The growth of Winnipeg by the tens of thousands in recent years and a desire to get healthy will probably fuel this competition for the next few years. It is interesting to note that malls such as Winnipeg Square, Garden City, Grant Park and now St. Vital Mall are adding fitness centers to drive traffic. It is difficult to imagine it happening 10 years ago in the city.

New Stores for Garden City Shopping Centre

The construction at Garden City Mall continues so everyone should be careful. A pedestrian fatality took place this past week near where work was done and is still being investigated.

As reported in this blog long ago, Seafood City is coming to Winnipeg and is being constructed within the footprint of the old Sears. The Filipino grocer will be complete this summer. It will be accompanied by Bulk Barn and a Michaels store leaving only three other spots left in the old Sears area left to leased.

Garden City is anchored on the other side of the mall by Canadian Tire and Winners. There are a few other vacancies within the mall left but suffice to say it is the biggest investment in the mall in decades and it is the first former Sears to have something built on the market.

After the Northgate Mall upgrade and addition of Save on Foods, Garden City could not afford to be complacent.

The closure of numerous national stores across North America has had landlords scrambling. Garden City and Grant Park malls have added Goodlife Fitness locations to attack crowds earlier and later into their shopping area. At 45 years old. Garden City was in need of an upgrade and looks to make continued improvements in 2019. Bulk Barn and Michaels are to open in the fall of this year.