‘We want to create an experience’ St. Vital Centre owner says vacant Bay store on road to redevelopment By: Gabrielle Piche Posted: 5:29 PM CDT Friday, Jul. 24, 2026

Entertainment attractions are coming to fill the former Hudson’s Bay space in St. Vital Centre.

Montreal-based real estate firm Leyad, the south Winnipeg mall’s owner, says it is finalizing an agreement for the vacant property. Further details should appear in the next couple months, said president Henry Zavriyev.

“We’re looking at what other types of experiences we can bring to the mall that aren’t just typical retail,” he said during a visit to Winnipeg this week.

“We want to create an experience where you can just come to the mall, hang out here for hours, no matter if you’re a kid, an adult, a retiree.”

Leyad bought St. Vital Centre in February. It’s among the company’s latest acquisitions in a string of shopping centre purchases.

“We’re looking at what other types of experiences we can bring to the mall that aren’t just typical retail.”

Recently, Leyad opened a bowling alley in Niagara Pen Centre in St. Catharines, Ont. It also inked deals with a pickleball operator and Funvilla, an indoor playground.

It turned a former Hudson’s Bay store into a Zellers at its Londonderry Mall in Edmonton. It’s also adding an indoor playground and laser tag to the centre.

St. Vital’s Bay store shuttered in May 2025 amid the country-wide shutdown of the former retail giant. Redevelopment of the old department store could take two years, Zavriyev said.

When the Bay — an entryway into the shopping hub — closed, mall retailers nearby felt a drop in traffic.

“If something does go up (in its place), I hope it would drum up more business for the stores that are on this end,” said Ashley Kiemeney, an employee at Daring Diva Purses.

Meantime, Uniqlo is set to open in the corridor on Aug. 21. It’s planning a grand opening with matcha, donuts and drumming.

The Japan-headquartered clothing chain is a “phenomenal retailer,” Zavriyev said, sitting at a St. Vital Centre food court table peppered with Uniqlo advertisements.

He’s led the acquisition of roughly eight Manitoba properties over the past two years. Leyad bought the building housing CDI College, at 280 Main St., in February 2024.

Johnston Terminal at The Forks, Garden City Square, and a few buildings housing Loblaw tenants and Canada Goose have followed.

“I’m … super bullish on Winnipeg,” Zavriyev said.

Leyad is a private company. It’s prioritized smaller Canadian cities and centres that will be “consistent” with one to three per cent revenue growth per year.

“Steady Eddie” and “not very volatile” are terms Zavriyev used.

Half of Leyad’s commercial revenue comes from “necessity-based” tenants, such as grocery stores. Walmart, Loblaw, Canadian Tire, Winners and Dollarama account for nearly 30 per cent of revenue, Zavriyev said.

“I’m … super bullish on Winnipeg.”

“It allows us to take those kind of unconventional steps with those other types of retailers,” he added. “I’ve been very cognizant of, ‘We need to have that anchor.’”

Leyad ramped up purchases of malls following the COVID-19 pandemic, when many questioned the future of brick-and-mortar retail. Mall fundamentals — dollar shops, grocery stores — remained “great,” Zavriyev said.

Leyad has been on a shopping spree: in 2026 alone, it’s purchased shopping centres in Victoria, Thunder Bay, Ont., Lloydminster, Alta., and Winnipeg, plus 387,000 square feet of grocery stores that Loblaw stores occupy.

Zavriyev, 32, established Leyad in 2012.

The company began in Montreal with apartment management. Zavriyev said he was working as a janitor while studying at Concordia University; he asked the property manager if he could rent out the apartment’s vacant units. He did the grunt work — painting, plumbing — and rented spaces.

Eventually, he dropped out of school and focused on building a property management business. He went to family offices in Montreal for initial investment and has gathered all-Canadian investors, he said.

Duplexes and 12-unit places later became industrial properties, leading to retail strip centres and larger buildings.

Leyad still owns apartments. Among them, Quebecers have accused the company of ‘renovictions,’ where tenants are pushed out of housing due to renovations and price increases.

Tenants in one Montreal seniors residence took Zavriyev to court, after being told to move or pay more for fewer services, CBC reported in 2023. The building wasn’t converted into residential apartments, despite the owner’s initial intentions.

Zavriyev argued Leyad has “never renovicted anyone.”

“Buildings hadn’t been renovated in generations and getting to hazardous points,” he said. “We were going to all of them and trying to make deals where we would try to figure out solutions in which, ‘OK, what would make sense as far as compensatory amount.’”

Leyad may purchase Manitoba apartments in the future, Zavriyev said, adding the company has “more optionality now.”

It’s grown to around 500 employees and has offices in Ontario, Quebec and Alberta.

Leyad isn’t the first out-of-province developer to acquire several properties in a “relatively short” time period, said Jeremy Davis, spokesman for the Winnipeg Regional Real Estate Board.

“Ambitious developers looking to expand into other markets can have many goals, but chief among them is making profitable investments,” Davis wrote in a statement. “In the end, outside investment is a direct vote of confidence into the market fundamentals of our region and increased competition is good for consumers.”

Retail spaces are generally “flourishing;” restaurants, entertainment and services such as barbers and nail salons continue to be popular in malls, said Paul Kornelsen, a CBRE vice-president.

“It’s a good-news story that there’s a … group that are outside of the province (seeing) Winnipeg as a viable investment,” Kornelsen said.

Colliers Canada clocked a vacancy rate of 5.1 per cent for Winnipeg retail centres in 2025, a jump from 3.3 per cent in 2024.

gabrielle.piche@winnipegfreepress.com