St. Vital Centre Plan for Sears

Two years.

It took this long to do something with in St. Vital Centre with the 130,000 square foot Sears site on the north side of the mall. In the picture above, the Sears is unshaded at the top.

It hasn't been much of a secret of what is coming to the Sears. Marshalls/HomeSense will take up 40,000 square feet and 25,000 square feet will be a Goodlife Fitness. They will both occupy two floors in a configuration yet to be revealed. Even though that covers quite a bit of the Sears space, there are two remaining retailers coming which haven't announced yet.

The Marshalls/HomeSense and Goodlife Fitness should be open in the spring on this year. Already the evidence of windows being built out to face the city can be seen under construction. This is very likely a group exercise studio. Signage is expected in March.

In addition to the aforementioned new tenants are two others Winnipeggers are familiar with. Warehouse One has moved into the mall and Dynacare has opened close to the entrance of the Silver City theatres. This will probably not be too bad during weekday hours when movies don't kick into high gear till later in the day.

There is a bus terminus fairly close by which is helpful and the mall has had a friendly seniors walk early in morning which could all contribute to this Dynacare location being well suited. I was a bit more disdainful of the Seasons of Tuxedo location being distance to the mall and in a very busy restaurant parking lot.

Warehouse One is in the end east corridor where more fashion stores are opposite Garage. The successful Winnipeg retailer has generally avoided pricey malls but suffice to say, St. Vital needs retailers who know how to sale. And this one does.

The retail sector keeps taking steps forward and backward. More backward for certain. The malls need people and companies like Dynacare and and Goodlife bring people in during quieter times for malls. The first thing in the morning group exercises or the blood test after fasting will have people coming regularly. For several restaurants and retailers it will be a boon.

St. Vital has had several other closures. There are broken teeth throughout the mall but momentum looks good and by mid-fall, they will have their game face ready for Christmas.

It remains to be seen whether Polo Park gets their act together with their own empty Sears which is 3X bigger.

Rec Room Coming to Seasons of Tuxedo

Well, the official announcement has come from Cineplex's Rec Room which has actively seeking a location in Winnipeg for some time. For a while, it looked like they might moving into the Polo Park Target location across from the ScotiaBank Theatre site. However, the complication of the site design made it less than ideal. The other rumour was St. Vital Centre in perhaps the old Sears location but the site was too large and had further complication of two floors and questionable parking.

Ideally, the Rec Room wanted a building tailor made for them covering one floor at about 40,000 square feet. In a perfect world it would be very close to a Cineplex movie theatre. Since Polo Park and St. Vital Centre did not work out the next best choice was a mall and in Winnipeg the newest mall is still actively building. The VIP Odeon and ScotiaBank Theatre are somewhere in the middle along a straight like down Kenaston for those seeking pre and post movie entertainment.

There are a number spots listed on Seasons of Tuxedo's map. The one they seem to be referring to is immediately across from Outlet Collections Mall across Sterling Lyon. Work is to begin soon but the opening will wait to 2019 as million and millions goes into these gaming centers.

The Rec Room will feature restaurants, performance spaces, 110 amusement games, axe throwing, luxury bowling and virtual reality games. At present there are four locations of Rec Rooms across Canada with an expectation of maybe 12-15 nation-wide.

Winnipeg has had gaming centers before but nothing of this scale has ever been attempted. It remains to be seen whether the Rec Room will successful with young adults or not but the investment seems to suggest that Cineplex believes they have a winner.

Polo Park Number 14 Mall in Canada 2017

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 InTouch 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 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 Sear space this year.

Polo Park Number 16 Mall in Canada

The Retail Council of Canada released their analysis of the Canadian mall market ending in December and one again CF Polo Park ranks high in their top 30 coming in number 16. It is very likely that Sears is the major drag on why Manitoba's biggest mall does not stand higher. The struggling retailer occupied a lot of space but sales, pedestrian traffic and productivity affects Polo park and St. Vital Centre dramatically.

Polo Park is the only mall to rank in the top 30 between Ontario and Alberta. Nearly all the top malls including Polo Park have experienced recent renovations or expansions. In the case of Polo Park, it was the 22 stores added in the old Zellers location in the past 3 years and the several stores added where Safeway once stood. Harry Rosen also had an expensive makeover.

All the top malls were located in urban centers, tourist areas and near mass transit. Polo Park is in the provinces largest city, one of the biggest tourist draws and has a major bus hub. Winnipeg has few high end retailers despite a higher median income than the Vancouver area. This may speak to the city being less of a tourist attraction than the coast.

Polo Park bought the the recently built former Target store north of the Scotiabank movie theatres. Rumour has swirled that Cineplex Odeon has their eyes set on a space in the parking lot for their Rec Centre entertainment complex. The mall seems to be in no hurry to lease the space and a number of retailers have kicked the tires including Nordstrom, Simons and Canadian Tire. In the case of the first two, they might be on Sears deathwatch as the old retailer continues to wheeze to a possible shutdown. The 300,000 stores will be highly sought after.

In all likelihood, Polo Park will rise in the ranks but until the Sears issue is resolved.

Cineplex Rec Room Coming to Winnipeg?

There have been rumours that Cineplex has been looking at bringing its Rec Room concept to Winnipeg across from Scotiabank Theatre Polo Park. This fall the first rec Room opened up in Edmonton with promises from the the company to establish more of them across Canada in 2017.

So what is the Rec Room? Is a state of the art playground with games and entertainment. They have bowling, ping pong, carnival games, simulators, pool, axe throwing and video games.

There also seems to be a performance area for dance, comedy and musical acts. Lots of big screens everywhere make the entertainment and restaurant area a ready made sports bar.

The area on Maroons Road beside Scotiabank Theatre in the empty parking lot of Polo Park Target seems to be where the focus is on now by the company. The feeling is that Cineplex would love to have the theatres and their game area combined together by a mere street crossing.

Each Rec Room costs millions to build and it is likely there is still some refining to be done on the Edmonton concept but Cineplex has successfully created value in the movie industry with bars, restaurants and games and appears poised to spread the concept to an adjacent property.

No announcement has been made on the now Polo Park owned land where Target stands but it would seem that nothing is happening too soon. A Rec Room might be the trigger for some further development.

Silver City Polo Park to Become Scotiabank Theatre Polo Park

Winnipeg's largest movie complex will be getting a name change this summer. Silver City Polo Park will become Scotiabank Theatre Polo Park to reflect the new 10 year agreement between the bank and theatre company in regards to the Scene card.

Winnipeg movie audience are familiar with the ad at the beginning of movies showing unsuspecting guests receiving a free movie at Scotiabank Theatres for using their Scene Card.

Cineplex, Silver City's owner recently announced monster profits for last part of 2015 and this is in part to updating the movie experience and renovating theatres.

Polo Park Part 3

Polo Park is going through it third major expansion since its inception. This does not include development in its parking lot of restaurants such as Earls and Joeys but rather expansion and renovation to the mall proper.

As an aide before I get too far, it should be mentioned that the Polo Park website is so far behind the times that they don't even have Joeys listed as being located on Polo Park property. I'm sure Joeys is impressed after being there for some time now and are probably why they are paying for Polo Park management in the first place.

At ant rate, this post will talk about the inside of the mall and the lay-out of the mall.

First, let me say that if people thought the outside of the mall was ugly, the inside doesn't get much better. The 1986 expansion that put a second floor on the mall was so fraught with problems as to defy belief. The entrances in any location in the mall do little to show off the mall or to give someone direction as to where to go. One of the the worst sections is the north entrance by Sears. For decades, it has been a wind tunnel for people. For this reason and for the waste of space it represents, renovations are taking place at this portal. A large Sportchek is being built at this entrance.

It remains to be seen what sort of improvement this will make because once inside the mall, a visitor still has to pass by the blank wall of Sears for some distance until well inside the mall.

The 1986 expansion placed three escalators in the mall and one glass elevator. Other elevators exist in the Bay and Sears but if you are in a wheelchair, it can't be easy to get the second floor unless that is where you entered in the first place via the second floor parking deck.

There is a glassed roof in a few places but its use of natural light is done so poorly as to make it almost useless.

The center of the mall, where a set of escalators and the glass elevator is located, has a small open space that serves a variety of needs. One of the main things the space is used for it the Santa display for several weeks before Christmas. The space is underutilized thereafter and doesn't serve a role as a either a spot for people watching or where people might meet a friend before going shopping together.

One of the main problems in Polo Park is the food court. Hemmed in as it is beside Sears on the second floor, it is not pretty not is it easy to get in and out of. Originally built with 500 seats, there are often no seats to be found. It is that busy at times. Only a few of the restaurants, Moxie's and A&W have seats of their own away from the maddening crowds. Anyone hoping to have a dining experience where they can relax and chat in the mall would find it extremely difficult to do so. Moxie's is probably the only choice but for years that has meant fighting past the crowds in the food court to get to its entrance.

No doubt mall management have known about the problems of its food court for some time and this is why renovations are taking place in this area now. I'll reserve further judgment until I see what they have done.

I don't know how much of the present renovations on the inside can or will address the things mentioned here. At the moment, there appears to an attempt to beautify the inside by ripping out tired facades and flooring. Some mall stores are all also taking advantage of the time to do renovations or change their location in the mall altogether.

It has been 21 years since the last major upgrade and Polo Park simply was not keeping up with the latest models in look and substance.

Malls in North America have become destination spots. Many of the news malls in the U.S. have all manner of entertainment in them including dining, shopping, theatre and recreation . In the last several years, Polo Park has been concerned about getting income from the large parking space around the mall. The construction of Earls, Joeys, the Silver City movie theatre and Pier 1 Imports all took precedence over what was happening in the mall itself.

The synergy between the mall and a stand alone restaurant or movie theatre is difficult to see. Good for mall management in terms of rent but not so good for retailers inside the mall. Someone going to Silver City is not necessarily going to Polo Park.

In the U.S., many malls build movie theatres right inside the mall. Polo Park used to have a theater in the basement on the west side but they treated it as an afterthought. I'm sure St. Vital Centre benefits more from Silver City inside the mall than Polo Park does from its stand alone Silver City.

More in Part 4.



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