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stevensontransit said:
could some prime hudsons bay locations like scarborough town centre, eaton centre, yorkdale, sherway, and square one remain open but close some underperforming locations?
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Correct. Probably any location outside of a major city, any location a smaller city, smaller mall, smaller town, is gonna probably be closing. Those locations you listed might be among the 30 surviving locations, if what I just posted about 50 closing is true.
 
That’s largely what happened the first time Eaton’s went into bankruptcy protection, but it was a lot fewer stores that were closed the first time: most of the downtown mall locations like Guelph, Brantford, Peterborough, and London (Toronto Eaton Centre, Ottawa Rideau, and Hamilton Eaton Centre survived until 1999) and some of the poorer-performing suburban stores (like Mississauga Sheridan) and smaller urban stores like Yonge-Eglinton.

The only GTA stores I see surviving as part of a last-ditch effort are Queen Street, Yorkdale, Square One, Sherway, maybe Scarborough TC, Hillcrest, Mapleview, and Upper Canada. Compared to Eaton’s in 1997, this will be a bloodbath.
 
ShonTron said:
That’s largely what happened the first time Eaton’s went into bankruptcy protection, but it was a lot fewer stores that were closed the first time: most of the downtown mall locations like Guelph, Brantford, Peterborough, and London (Toronto Eaton Centre, Ottawa Rideau, and Hamilton Eaton Centre survived until 1999) and some of the poorer-performing suburban stores (like Mississauga Sheridan) and smaller urban stores like Yonge-Eglinton.

The only GTA stores I see surviving as part of a last-ditch effort are Queen Street, Yorkdale, Square One, Sherway, maybe Scarborough TC, Hillcrest, Mapleview, and Upper Canada. Compared to Eaton’s in 1997, this will be a bloodbath.
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When your read that list out............what I think might stand out is how many stores have already closed.

In Scarborough, this results in the foreseeable closure of Eglinton Square, a small c-class store, whose entire mall is coming down anyway.

In North York, its the probable closure of Fairview's Bay, and Centrepoint, also a dying mall set for total redevelopment. While Etobicoke would be the Woodbine Centre. Of these, only Fairview looks like a location that a better managed and capitalized retailer would want.

I don't want to in any way brush off the misfortune of those who would lose their jobs, but as Canadian retail failures go, Target was far more impactful. (and Zellers before that)

In the broader GTA, that would leave (as closures) Erin Mills, Oakville, Pickering for sure), maybe Oshawa? (I suspect they would retain Bramalea)
 
It is sad to see an iconic operation close but not a tragedy. On how it would affect Canada’s cities I actually see it as a good thing as retail space is hard to come by and there seems to be no problem selling properties for redevelopment. Contrast this to many locations in US metros where this would be a serious blow.

As far as replacements go if not being redeveloped: IKEA, Selfridges, Loblaws, Farmboy and Jysk mostly in the more urban locations.
 
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christiesplits said:
The article notes the decline in foot traffic at the flagship Queen Street store, but it doesn't note construction of the Ontario Line and closure of Queen Street, which I'm sure also is having an impact.
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Queen Street's traffic fell because:

1) The pandemic, lack of downtown workers, this is now beginning to return to normal but was a huge hit and it disrupted habits.

2) In part because of the above, and for other reasons.........Pusteri's in the basement became a shell of itself, before closing, Sak's lost many boutiques, also, HBC corporate leased off 2 floors up top to We Work, who summarily went bust, wherein they relocated Kitchenware out of a beautiful flagship space they had just built, and put them back in the basement, and bounced mensware (socks etc.) up to the 5th floor. The many moves of sections disrupted habitual buying patterns. So did 1/2 assed losses/introductions of banners from Top Man to MEC to pretend Zellers.

3) Reduced Hours.....the store has been closing at 7pm nightly. They just moved back to full evening hours recently, but Sak's is still closing at 6pm nightly for goodness sake. Since its very much integrated w/'The Bay here, that is quite damaging.

4) The impact of the Ontario Line project. (which has also reduced selling space in the basement and storage space on lower, non-public levels.)

5) The Bay has not been spending on maintaining escalators, elevators, and other aspects of store appearance and functionality due to lacking sufficient resources. Lack of staff has reduced service levels, while late payments have seen vendors cutback on product.

The combination of the above is pretty damaging.
 
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Richard White said:
I'd much rather see a return of Marks and Spencer.
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To what?

****

Aside from having some consideration for what is arguably the longest continuously operating company in the world. (Hudson's Bay company is its 4th century) ...

Marks and Sparks never ran Canadian stores that could rival the Bay for size or category range.

Even the majority of their European stores are under 15,000ft2.

Their superstores are about a 100,000ft2, which is less than 1/2 the size of the Yorkdale store and would fit on one floor in Queen Street.

Their largest store is Oxford St. in London and is 170,000ft2. That's about 1 3/4 floors at Queen St.
 
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