Children’s store leaving Exchange

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This article was published 27/03/2024 (736 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

One Manitoba-born children’s store is growing up — and on its 50th birthday, it’s counting 10 shops across the country and a new Winnipeg distribution centre.

It’s also moving from its birthplace: it’s become too big for its Exchange District headquarters, according to the company leader.

“We had some really quick, fast growth,” said Robyn Dashefsky-Moar, CEO of West Coast Kids.

She called from her Vancouver office, three provinces away from where her parents first set up their business.

Currently, staff are removing the last items from West Coast Kids’ initial location. Cradles and cribs are in sparse supply at the four-storey Exchange District building, off the corner of Princess Street and Bannatyne Avenue.

West Coast Kids simply outgrew the space, Dashefsky-Moar stated. Crime and feelings of insecurity in the area didn’t help, she added.

Gone are the strollers and soothers. They might be in West Coast Kids’ Kenaston Boulevard showroom, or the company’s new 40,000-sq.-ft. warehouse near Winnipeg’s airport.

Even shipping partners asked for a move from the Exchange District location, Dashefsky-Moar relayed.

Products were transported via an “old, old freight elevator” up and down the building’s storeys.

“You can imagine, it wasn’t very efficient going to get somebody’s order… going from the fourth floor to the basement, back to the third floor,” Dashefsky-Moar said.

The Princess Street hub housed inventory for locations throughout Canada and products for website orders.

As West Coast Kids’ store count ticked up — six new shops within nine years — the need for different headquarters grew.

The company’s online sales basically “tripled in business overnight” during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Efficiency is really important,” Dashefsky-Moar said. “With the website… efficiency is time, and time is money.”

West Coast Kids took over a Bradford Street warehouse in January of 2023. It wanted to give customers ample time to realize the move from the Exchange, Dashefsky-Moar said.

The company’s new location has multiple loading docks and “proper warehouse management systems,” Dashefsky-Moar continued.

There aren’t any break-ins, unlike at the founding location, she added. Her staff felt a shift when the Public Safety Building closed in 2016.

“Our parking lot, we would come in the morning and never know what to expect, whether there would be people that had… set up camp there,” Dashefsky-Moar said.

“They made washrooms for themselves in our parkade.”

Even so, the move from the Exchange District is bittersweet, Dashefsky-Moar explained. Over the past year, staff have sorted through 50 years’ worth of items.

The upcoming Easter Sunday marks West Coast Kids’ last day in 103 Princess St. The building, which Dashefsky-Moar’s family owned, has been sold.

Dashefsky-Moar didn’t share details about the sale. An online listing advertised the 49,000-sq.-ft. building for $2.4 million. It had potential for residential or co-work conversion, the listing read.

Dashefsky-Moar’s parents bought the site and opened Friendly Bears (later called West Coast Kids) in 1974.

At the time, catalogues were the main shopping method for baby products. Dashefsky-Moar’s mother was pregnant and wanted to begin a brick-and-mortar shop for baby items.

The family began with a handful of staff. Now, Dashefsky-Moar counts more than 360 employees.

Growth was slow to start, Dashefsky-Moar recalled — over two decades, the family opened two more shops, in Calgary and Edmonton.

It changed names to E-Children as it planted an online presence. Then, in 2002, Dashefsky-Moar joined her parents’ venture. She’d returned from a retail management job in Toronto; next, she wanted to live in Vancouver.

Dashefsky-Moar moved to the west coast and opened a children’s store there, aptly labelling it West Coast Kids.

“It was quite catchy,” Dashefsky-Moar said.

The name stuck and was applied to the family’s stores. West Coast Kids sought trendy and proprietary items — Dashefsky-Moar believes, in part, it’s why the company has seen such growth.

It’s become a place people want to say they’ve shopped at, she described.

In 2013, West Coast Kids opened another Calgary store. Then came Vancouver, Toronto, second locations in Winnipeg, Toronto and Edmonton, and last year, a place in Burlington, Ont.

The company will continue looking for new markets, Dashefsky-Moar said.

Business staff across the road from 103 Princess St. will miss West Coast Kids.

“It’s nice when West Coast Kids is open, because sometimes their customers will trickle in here, and we’ll get new customers,” said Reianne Juan, a manager at stationery store 26 Market. “For them closing down, I guess those customers won’t be here.”

Some clients enter the Exchange District specifically for West Coast Kids, Juan added.

Princess Street is quiet — most of the area’s public-facing businesses occupy different avenues, she noted. She and co-manager Jami Gasmena hope a restaurant or shop will consume the soon-to-be empty space.

“I’m kind of sad that they’re leaving,” Gasmena said. “They’ve been here for so long… they’re a staple on this street.”

Tamarack Clothing, a nearby outerwear retailer, has permanently closed its Princess Street doors.

gabrielle.piche@winnipegfreepress.com