Nostalgic but unsurprised city shoppers ponder possible last Bay Days By: Chris Kitching Posted: 5:29 PM CDT Tuesday, Mar. 11, 2025

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This article was published 11/03/2025 (524 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Outside one of the two remaining Hudson’s Bay Co. department stores in Winnipeg, many shoppers expressed sadness but little surprise Tuesday that the retail chain’s financial troubles could lead to some closures.

The fate of the last Bay stores in the city — at CF Polo Park and St. Vital Centre — and dozens more across Canada is uncertain, after the country’s oldest retailer filed for creditor protection in a bid to remain in business.

“It would be a sad day if (the company) doesn’t carry on,” shopper Bob Ledoux said at the Polo Park store. “It’s sad because The Bay is synonymous with Canadian retail. A lot of us grew up with The Bay and Eaton’s being the two biggest stores in Winnipeg.”

Hudson’s Bay is looking at closing about 40 of its 80 stores, although the figure could change, an anonymous source told the Canadian Press. Job losses are also feared.

The company filed for creditor protection in an Ontario court last Friday. A restructuring process, intended to avoid bankruptcy, is underway.

In an email, a spokesperson for Cadillac Fairview, which owns CF Polo Park, said “it’s too early to speculate what will happen at our shopping centre.”

Neither Hudson’s Bay nor St. Vital Centre responded to a request for comment.

Shoppers can expect Hudson’s Bay to undergo changes while the company determines which of its stores are profitable and which are not, said retail analyst Rob Warren, a former Winnipeg resident.

“It’s sad because The Bay is synonymous with Canadian retail. A lot of us grew up with The Bay and Eaton’s being the two biggest stores in Winnipeg.”–Bob Ledoux

 

“Everyone who has gone through this has to close some stores because some stores are just underperforming compared to what they need to survive,” he said.

Hudson’s Bay is an anchor tenant at both Winnipeg malls.

The loss of an anchor retailer can be big because those tenants help to draw people to a shopping centre, said Warren, a senior instructor in retail at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks.

“Originally, they would try to replace it with another anchor tenant,” he said. “That’s just not possible anymore, so what you’re likely to see is a division of that space into other stores, smaller stores, that would be able to fill that particular floor space.”

CF Polo Park’s former Sears location, which closed in 2017, was redeveloped to include EQ3 and Zara stores. A space once occupied by HBC-owned Zellers was transformed into multiple stores.

“Department stores, just in general, have been in trouble for, I’m going to say, 30 years as we’ve seen the markets change.”–Rob Warren

At one time, there were at least five Bay stores in Winnipeg.

The flagship downtown location, which closed in 2020, is being transformed after Hudson’s Bay — a company that dates back to 1670 and played a major role in the colonization of Canada — transferred the property to Southern Chiefs’ Organization.

A Bay store in Kildonan Place Shopping Centre closed in 2000 and was converted to a Zellers. The company did not reopen a Bay store that closed the same year, when Unicity Mall was demolished to be redeveloped into stand-alone anchors and strips of stores.

Bob and Beverley Barr said it’s a discouraging sign when they see “racks and racks” of items at discounted prices every time they visit the Bay at CF Polo Park.

“This is about the only store I shop for clothes, so I’m very sad about the possibility (of closures),” said Beverley Barr, who happened to be partway through the Stephen R. Bown book, The Company: The Rise and Fall of the Hudson’s Bay Empire, when HBC entered creditor protection.

“I spent my youth every Saturday going down to Hudson’s Bay and Eaton’s… I’d hate there not to be a Hudson’s Bay.”–Donna Stone

Bob Barr said Hudson’s Bay’s situation is a reminder of the declines of now-defunct department stores Sears and Eaton’s.

“It’s sad because the two anchor stores (at CF Polo Park) were Sears and the Bay, and they lost Sears a few years ago,” he said.

Shopper Donna Stone also wasn’t surprised by the chain’s financial difficulties.

“I spent my youth every Saturday going down to Hudson’s Bay and Eaton’s,” she said. “I’d hate there not to be a Hudson’s Bay.”

Tony Zinn, who was visiting Winnipeg from Thunder Bay, said shopping habits have changed.

“Lots of places are getting into trouble because of online shopping now,” he said.

Last week, the company blamed its financial troubles on a drop in consumer spending amid rising living costs, a downturn in visits to downtown stores since the COVID-19 pandemic and trade tensions between the U.S. and Canada.

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Warren said there have been signs of trouble for some time. In recent years, the company sold real estate in the U.S. to help pay down debt.

“We’ve known for a while this was going to happen, plus department stores, just in general, have been in trouble for, I’m going to say, 30 years as we’ve seen the markets change,” Warren said.

“First, it was the big-box stores, and then it was all the online players that came in. That’s really changed the nature of the industry, and department stores like the Bay have had a tough time adapting to that.”

Hudson’s Bay is still accepting gift cards during the restructuring process. The Hudson’s Bay Rewards loyalty program was paused until further notice.

chris.kitching@freepress.mb.ca

Chris Kitching
Reporter

Chris Kitching is a general assignment reporter at the Free Press. He began his newspaper career in 2001, with stops in Winnipeg, Toronto and London, England, along the way. After returning to Winnipeg, he joined the Free Press in 2021, and now covers a little bit of everything for the newspaper. Read more about Chris.

Every piece of reporting Chris produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.