Big gap at St. Vital

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This article was published 28/01/2016 (3645 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A number of high-profile retail brands are closing their St. Vital Centre stores, but the mall’s manager says there are others waiting in the wings to fill the space.

No fewer than six national brand stores have closed or are in the process of closing in the post-Christmas season.

The biggest name among the closures — and occupying the most square feet — is the Gap.

Last summer, the San Francisco-based retailer announced it was closing 175 locations, 140 of them by the end of the month.

The 9,500-sq.-ft. store, which includes a Gap Kids, is to close before next week.

St. Vital Centre manager Cheryl Mazur said, “It is sad to lose them. The Gap has been a great tenant for many years.”

She said she understands the company wants to have only two stores in Winnipeg and reiterated the rumour the Gap is expected to build a store in the Outlet Collection mall under construction across the road from IKEA.

The list of closures at St. Vital also includes West 49, Suzy Shier, Urban Behavior, Carlton Cards and International Clothier.

Notwithstanding the high profile names that are leaving, Mazur said the closings are not indicative of anything special going on in the market.

“Everyone stays during the Christmas season and wait to get the January sales out of the way,” Mazur said.

She said new tenants typically move in during the spring and fall seasons.

“You’re not going to get someone opening in January or February, when it is slow,” Mazur said.

She said the mall is in discussions with many potential new tenants, including local and national operators.

For example, Suzy Shier is leaving but Mazur said they have another tenant waiting to get final approval, which will probably be announced in the spring.

Some of the movement is part of corporate brand management. Mazur said retail companies — as well as the malls themselves — restructure themselves over time to reflect the retail trends of the day.

‘It is sad to lose them. The Gap has been a great tenant for many years’

Suzy Shier and Urban Behavior are both part of the YM Inc. corporate family, as is Bluenotes and a number of other retail banners.

Urban Behavior’s sister store Bluenotes is replacing it, and the space will only be closed for a few days.

“Bluenotes was here, then they left, and we replaced it with Brown’s Shoes,” she said. “Now they are re-inventing themselves, as all retailers do, and they are coming back.”

Mazur is playing her cards close to the vest as to what sort of changes will be occurring, but said the property continues to be an attractive location.

Social-media sites include references from time to time about the expensive rents at St. Vital, and Mazur said despite the disruption occurring in the bricks-and-mortar retail market, rental rates at the St. Vital property do not go down.

Even with the closures, she said the vacancy rate at the 160-tenant mall is about 1.5 per cent to two per cent.

That’s an enviable rate considering real-estate research company Reis Inc. recently reported the average vacancy rate for regional malls declined slightly to 7.8 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2015.

Reis’s reporting showed vacancy rate peaked in North America in the third quarter of 2011 at 9.4 per cent.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca