A Total makeover

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This article was published 15/03/2021 (1844 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When workers took down the giant “N” from the building at the corner of Broadway and Sherbrook Street last week, passing cars honked and pedestrians cheered: the letter stood for Nygard, and the symbolism of its removal clearly resonated with the daily traffic in West Broadway.

“It came down piece by piece,” said Brian Labossiere, president of Total Flooring, a local company that recently purchased the shop, formerly a key retail node of clothier Nygard International and a monument to its disgraced owner, Peter Nygard. Where once women’s slim jeans were sold, Labossiere will now sell the city’s largest selection of stock flooring.

“It’s a good thing: we’re clearing the negativity, and replacing it with something more positive,” said Labossiere, who hopes to open his store to the public by the end of March. “His face and his name aren’t going to be here anymore.”

Over the past year, Nygard’s 50-year-old fashion empire, largely built upon a rags-to-riches story, dedicated clientele, and the owner’s own self-promotion — his face was plastered on ads, banners, billboards, and his own stores — has crumbled, its swift decline fuelled by Peter Nygard himself.

In February 2020, 10 women filed a class-action lawsuit against the 79-year-old magnate in the U.S. District Court, alleging that he’d drugged and raped them, with some of the women saying the assaults occurred when they were younger than 18. A federal raid on Nygard International’s headquarters in Times Square ensued, and Nygard stepped down from the company. Several more women came forth with allegations of sexual assault, and the company and its subsidiaries were taken into receivership, with properties, including the Broadway store to be sold. Thirteen months later, Nygard is held in custody at the Headingley Correctional Centre after being arrested on a U.S. extradition warrant on charges related to sex-trafficking and racketeering dating back decades. A bail appeal is scheduled at the Manitoba Court of Appeal on March 18.

As Nygard’s legal battles continue, Labossiere — a career tradesman in construction and flooring — is working with a crew to erase the former tenant’s presence from the 12,000 square-foot Broadway storefront that will soon be Total Flooring’s headquarters and retail hub. When the five-year-old company took ownership March 5, there was a lot of erasing yet to be done.

“Everything in here was blue,” Labossiere says, conducting a brief tour around the property, bought for just under $2.5 million, and pointing out Nygard’s signature colour scheme. It’s mostly been painted over in Total Flooring’s lime green and bright orange motif.

Essentially every inch of the property, which underwent a costly renovation in the early 2000s, contained some trace of its former owner’s largesse: a massive interior sign, now covered up, showed Nygard’s smiling face; a picture of his Bahamian resort — where many of the alleged assaults occurred — hung beside the former tailor’s area (soon to be Labossiere’s office); the central receptionist’s desk is made of marble and estimated to have cost as much as $70,000. Blue lights are embedded in the floor. Eighteen-foot tall synthetic trees are placed throughout the space.

“They spared no expense,” Labossiere says, guessing that the custom lighting alone likely cost the former tenant upwards of $200,000, if not much more. A glass relief of Nygard’s face was lasered into the building’s north wall, and a hammer was used to smash it out.

For Labossiere, getting these renovations and removals done quickly was important, not only because he wanted to open to the public fast, but because he knew the building had become a reminder to many of a painful situation and legacy. “We’re giving it our look, and taking his away,” he said.

At Nygard properties across the city, a similar resurfacing is occurring. Both the Inkster headquarters and Notre Dame compound recently sold to domestic investors as well, said Kris Mutcher, vice-president with Colliers International, who served as the listing agent on behalf of the properties’ receiver on the Broadway store.

Mutcher said the Broadway property, which was built in 1911 and has since undergone major upgrades and expansion, was a strong asset, with a recently renovated roof, new HVAC systems, significant interior renovations, and a parking lot. The location, along two busy streets, was also prime.

The former tenant’s notoriety didn’t hurt the property’s value, Mutcher said. “I don’t think a purchaser like (Labossiere) thinks people won’t come here because it used to be a Nygard store,” he said. “It’s a great piece of property, very close to downtown.”

Labossiere agreed: the property triples his company’s footprint compared to its former home, a leased warehouse on Wardlaw Avenue off of Donald Street, and presents an opportunity for Total Flooring to build on the success of 2020, its most productive year yet.

In under two weeks since taking possession, Labossiere’s employees, who’ve done most of the interior renovations themselves, have chipped away at the building’s past, and he hopes his company can soon start a prosperous future in the neighbourhood.

“Next week, those racks are going to be completely full of carpet, and the floor will be covered in pallets of flooring,” Labossiere said proudly.

As for the giant “N,” it will be framed in and covered up by a Total Flooring sign.

ben.waldman@freepress.mb.ca